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Moreover the project will create a forum for all internationally and nationally working, 
presently scattered and not well co-ordinated Odra research. For this reason the IOP intends to 
initiate and organise a series of International Odra Research Conferences (IORC). The 1 st one 
will be held from June 16 th -19 th 1998 in Sklarska Poreba. 
Analogue to the strategy at other transboundary rivers (e.g. at the Elbe and Rhine) the 
obtained results will be made available to the International Commission for the Protection of 
the Odra River (ICPO), involved governments as well as the commission of transboundary 
waters as basis for decisions about political activities as well as measures of hydrological 
engineering. 
In particular the following regionally differentiated activities are planned: 
• searching of inorganic and organic pollutants in all compartments (biota, water, suspended 
matter, sediments as well as flood sediments) of the Odra river. Thereby the search of 
totally new, up till now unknown pollutants by non-target-screening is included. 
• characterisation of synergistic and toxic effects 
• description of the transport and conversion behaviour of pollutants 
• determination and characterisation of sources and sinks of the pollutants as well as 
parameters influencing their transport and metabolic behaviour. 
These investigations contribute to the evaluation of the amount of pollutants reaching the 
Baltic Sea via Szczecin Lagoon as well as the characterisation of their sources. By this way the 
interests of HELCOM are touched. 
During the workshop about flood consequences held from January 12 th to 14 th in Hamburg it 
became obvious that by using different analytical methods in the framework of the monitoring 
of the Baltic Sea and Odra river respectively the after flood data are not well comparable. By 
this reason the IOP offers to develop in co-operation with HELCOM and in consideration of 
European defaults an uniform standard of analytical procedures.