Environmental Management in Urban Areas: Croatian Challenges towards European Union Accession

Due to ongoing urbanisation, accumulating waste, traffic, noise and damage to human health environmental pollution occur more frequently in Croatian cities. It is to be expected that it will occur even more often due to increased migration to towns, urbanisation, construction and industrialization around bigger town areas. This problem is stressed in bigger towns along the Adriatic coast. In the summer months, due to big number of tourists, environmental impacts multiply, while the existing infrastructure (waste management centres, waste water treatment plans, water supply, noise and traffic infrastructure) minimally meet the increasing needs. Apart from the inadequate infrastructure, the EU environmental directives have not been fully transposed to Croatian legislation. However in the last two years significant changes have been made especially with regard to waste and waste waters. The level of institutional capacity for environmental management in urban areas is inadequate, especially with regard to the knowledge and experience in strategic planning and environmental management, as well as in public participation in the decision-making on environment. This paper shows the basic framework for environmental management in urban areas of the European Union and environmental directives which should be implemented in urban areas of Croatia, obligations related to environmental management in those areas deriving from the new Environmental Protection Act (2007) and results of analysis of the existing knowledge and skills in the field of strategic planning and environmental management in Croatian urban areas. Finally, recommendations include basic guidelines for the development of environmental management programmes in urban areas according to EU recommendations and Croatian legislation