The EU defines water services as a wide notion that includes water abstraction for the cooling of industrial installations and for irrigation in agriculture; the use of surface waters for navigation purposes, flood protection or hydro-power production; and wells drilled for agricultural, industrial or private consumption.

23. Stresses that major infrastructure facilities, vital to promoting the EU's policy objectives of sustainable development and enhanced food security in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals, are increasingly at risk from the effects of flooding, and must be safeguarded; recommends that financing agencies (bilateral aid agencies, multilateral development banks, Export Credit Agencies, EIB), should ensure that any dam option for which financing is approved results from an agreed process of ranking of alternatives regarding irrigation, water storage and hydropower and respect the WCD guidelines; further s ...[+++]tresses that hydropower plants are also particularly at risk from flash floods and avalanches;

23. Stresses that major infrastructure facilities, vital to promoting the EU’s policy objectives of sustainable development and enhanced food security in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals, are increasingly at risk from the effects of flooding, and must be safeguarded; recommends that financing agencies (bilateral aid agencies, multilateral development banks, Export Credit Agencies, EIB), should ensure that any dam option for which financing is approved results from an agreed process of ranking of alternatives regarding irrigation, water storage and hydropower and respect the WCD guidelines; further s ...[+++]tresses that hydropower plants, often essential to LDCs' energy resources, are also particularly at risk from flash floods and avalanches;

6. Urges the Member States to reflect on the role of forests in the European Union, as part of a systematic set of land management measures including flood safety measures concentrating on more effective water retention and geological safety measures designed to stabilise slopes and carry out reafforestation wherever possible; proposes that a public debate be launched on their environmental, social and economic role, and that this debate be used to increase awareness of the existing disparities between Europe's forests and particularly the specific nature of Mediterranean forests; believes that there is a need to make better use of the ...[+++] Structural and Cohesion Funds for structural measures to prevent drought, the main aggravating factor in natural disasters; also believes that incentives should be provided for forest conservation and management of the countryside so as to establish a variety of uses (forestry, grazing, arable crops, irrigation, etc.); maintains that monoculture should be practised only in clearly circumscribed areas particularly well suited to the species concerned and the related economic activities, and that it is necessary for such systems to be based on good sense and for owners and producers to exercise their responsibilities scrupulously;

The first programme is the Post-Flood Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Programme of 15 million ecus, which consists of : - an agricultural component of 7.3 million ecus, comprising supply of spare parts for the repair of small scale irrigation pumps damaged by the flood, supply of new irrigation pumps as replacement of lost or destroyed pumps and spare parts for trucks which are essential for transport to and from the flood-affected areas in remote parts of Northern Sudan; in this region sma ...[+++]ll scale farmers were the most severely hit by the August floods and rains, which destroyed many of their houses and most of their irrigation infrastructure (pumps and irrigation canals); - a transport component of 7.7 million ecus, comprising reconstruction of the major road bridge of Geneina in Darfur Province in Western Sudan and earth moving equipment, materials and motor trolleys to the Sudan Railways Corporation for permanent repair and strengthening of railway embankments damaged by the floods and the reconstruction of a damaged railway briilways Support Programme of 19 million ecus, of which an important part (11.5 million ecus) consists of the reconstruction of 5 major bridges and 18 smaller bridges and drainage structures on the Western railway line from Kosti to Babanousa, aimed at making this railway line more reliable during the rainy seasons, during which until now, due to insufficient drainage, flood damage has caused railway traffic to be disrupted each year/.

The Commission has decided to finance the following projects under the financial and technical assistance programme for Latin American and Asian developing countries: Bangladesh - Project to develop the central-northern region ECU 1 870 000 The aims of the project are: (a) to draw up a regional development plan for the central-northern region, focusing on flood prevention, drainage and irrigation, which are needed in order to improve agriculture and promote the region's social and economic development; (b) to con ...[+++]duct a feasibility study for a priority project on flood prevention, drainage and irrigation in the region, three areas which have been given priority in the action plan; (c) to conduct pre-feasibility studies for other projects identified in the regional plan.