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Transboundary river basins are responsible for over half of the global river discharges and accommodate 40% of the global population. Ukraine is part of the four large transboundary rivers that flow through more than ten European countries and experience pollution problems because of human activities in up-and downstream areas. The Ukrainian government calls for actions to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) and integrate the European Union water legislation. This paper discusses five sustainable development perspectives for Ukraine to reduce pollution in transboundary rivers. These perspectives relate to (1) transitions from administrative river management (before 2017) to river basin management (after 2017) to enhance cooperation between countries, (2) interdisciplinary and (3) transdisciplinary research to better understand the causes and effects of river pollution and explore solutions, (4) innovation and modernization of water-related infrastructures and (5) the societal awareness. Future research could focus on the example of Ukraine and the adoption of these five perspectives to support the formulation of solutions to achieve SDG6 and support the sustainable basin management of transboundary rivers and the integration of European Union water legislation.

The population in the Black Sea region is expected to decline in the future. However, a better understanding of how river pollution is affected by declining trends in population and increasing trends in economic developments and urbanization is needed. This study aims to quantify future trends in point-source emissions of nutrients, microplastics, Cryptosporidium, and triclosan to 107 rivers draining into the Black Sea. We apply a multi-pollutant model for 2010, 2050, and 2100. In the future, over half of the rivers will be more polluted than in 2010. The population in 74 sub-basins may drop by over 25% in our economic scenario with poor wastewater treatment. Over two-thirds of the people will live in cities and the economy may grow 9-fold in the region. Advanced wastewater treatment could minimize trade-offs between economy and pollution: our Sustainability scenario projects a 68–98% decline in point-source pollution by 2100. Making this future reality will require coordinated international efforts.

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This review article aims to increase our understanding in the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of implementing the basin approach for water resources management in Ukraine. To this end, this article implements that SWOT analysis for discussing the transition from the administrative approach towards the basin approach. The SWOT analysis consists of the four main aspects: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and Weakness include strong and weak points of implementing the basin approach, respectively. Opportunities are windows for implementing actions to facilitate the basin approach and increase the effectiveness of this approach. Threats include risks for implementing the basin approach. In order to better understand opportunities, the main drivers and causes of water pollution are also discussed in the article. Results of the review show that climate change affects the availability of water resources strongly. Human activities namely the poultry production are important polluters of water resources. The article summarizes the correct water resources management approaches and proposes four main strategies for implementing the basin approach within the SWOT analysis. The first strategy deals with the successful transition from the administrative management towards the basin management of water resources. The second strategy deals with an increase in the access of the public to the water resources information including water quality. The third strategy deals with integrating the European Union water-related directives in the national environmental policies. The fourth strategy deals with reducing pollution levels in water systems through improved technologies. Next steps are to develop an integrated approach to account for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the four strategies. It is important to develop water indicators to facilitate an integrated assessment of water resources for different water uses while accounting for water quality. Future research can focus on future scenarios to project water quality under global change and to assess effects of the national policies on reducing future water pollution from urbanization and agricultural sectors.