In order to support the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, the European Commission has established a cluster on Integrated Catchment Water Modelling (CatchMod). The objective of this cluster is the development of common harmonised modelling tools and methodologies for the integrated management of water at river basin or sub-basin scales, including the interface to the coastal zone.

This requires a close cooperation and synergy between different ongoing EC project funded under the Key Action Sustainable Management and Quality of Water that address comparable and complementary issues and research questions. The other projects in the cluster are:

• Real-life scale integrated catchment models for supporting water- and environmental management decisions - TISZA RIVER PROJECT
  
• Towards Harmonised Procedures for Quantification of Catchment Scale Nutrient Losses from European Catchments : EUROHARP
  
• Benchmark Models for the Water framework directive : BMW
  
• Harmonising Quality Assurance in model based catchment and river basin management : HARMONIQUA
  
• IT Frameworks : HARMONIT
  
• Harmonised modelling tools for integrated basin management : HARMONI-CA
  
• Harmonised techniques and representative river basin data for assessment and use of uncertainty information in integrated water management : HARMONIRIB
  
• Evaluation and improvement of water quality models for application to temporary waters in southern European catchments : TempQsim
  
• Climate and lake impacts in Europe : CLIME
  
• Integrated water management of transboundary catchments : TRANSCAT
  

Additional projects could also considered by the European Commission in a later stage.

The primary aim of the cluster is to enhance the complementariness and synergy between the above projects, to avoid unnecessary overlaps in project activities and to help the co-ordination and dissemination of research results. The secondary aim is to provide support to EU policy in the area of developing strategies facilitating the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the field of basin management plans.

The specific clustering activities (identification of complementariness issues and elimination of potential overlaps, common workshops and dissemination activities, etc.) will be discussed in the context of the HARMONI-CA concerted action.

The CatchMod projects are very aware that many other projects are ongoing, that can provide valuable information to the cluster, but may also profit from it. Therefore the CatchMod Cluster is an open cluster, of which the core projects have contractual obligations to clustering. But involvement from other projects is highly appreciated.
The following projects are currently already so involved that they are fully considered CatchMod Cluster projects:

• Harmonizing Collaborative Planning : HarmoniCoP
  
• MULti-sectoral, INtegrated and Operational decision support system for sustainable use of water resources at the catchment scale : MULINO