Background The Timis-Bega River Basin is a large and ramified trans-boundary river system, with a population of over one million people. The major floods of the late 1990s caused loss of human life and substantial damage. The impact of the floods was heightened by the lack of real-time water level monitoring and forecasting, as well as a failure to take flood risks and the interests of different water users into account in urban zoning policy. In the absence of accurate and sound flood forecasting, the elaboration and implementation of any flood damage mitigation programme is also less effective. There was therefore a need for realistic and integrated strategies to deal with flooding. Objectives The project objective was to support local authorities’ flood risk management at the river basin level. A River Management Plan would be elaborated for the Timis-Bega River Basin, as the demonstration area. The overall approach was to be based on scientific knowledge of structural and non-structural measures, in line with the Water Framework Directive. The project would specifically focus on the development of a water monitoring system and mathematical models for predicting floods. A system of public consultation and information was also to be set-up. The project aimed to present information in a “negotiable” form: tradable water volumes, and/or land uses, between the different communities and owners living all along the rivers. Results The project installed monitoring stations to measure water levels and transmit information, via mobile telephone and internet, to the central servers at the beneficiary’s premises. The project partners processed this information using meteorological and hydrological models to forecast water levels. The models allow flood occurrence probability to be estimated, thus permitting local communities to react appropriately to prevent flood damage. Following a review of past floods and an analysis of local topography, the project team drew-up flood risk and vulnerability maps for the target river basin area. These flood risk maps should be of use for local authorities for physical planning purposes at local and regional level. The beneficiary also elaborated a River Basin Master Plan, which is being further developed to comply with the Water Framework Directive objectives. The Plan includes a basin-based raw water abstraction fee, and also suggests a “rising blocks” method for managing the consumption of drinking water.