Many river basins face water quality problems caused by discharge of wastewater from growing populations and industrial development as well as runoff from agriculture containing excess fertilisers and pesticides. In transboundary rivers, an additional complexity arises as pollution may affect other countries. This is initially dealt with by establishing transboundary environmental monitoring systems to assist basin management. Water quality problems are, for example, experienced in the heavily populated Ganges River Basin, where a Ganga Action Plan was initiated in 1985 to try to improve the river’s environmental quality. It was only partly successful and was replaced in 2009 by the establishment of the National Ganga River Basin Authority, which is chaired by the Prime Minister and is attempting to foster a whole-of-basin approach to ensure effective abatement of pollution and conservation of the river. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River also has pollution reduction as one of its management programmes, targeting water quality improvements through improved wastewater treatment. While this has improved the water quality, problems related to excess nutrient runoff from agriculture and hazardous substance pollution are still considered important management issues for the Danube. The lessons learned from these experiences suggest that wastewater treatment and other measures to abate pollution should be implemented in the first place rather than after the damage is documented, by which time work will be needed to not only reduce pollution but also to restore damaged ecosystems.