WATER

The WATER project brought together the cities of Warsaw (Poland), Arnhem (The Netherlands), Toledo (Spain), Eskilstuna (Sweden) and Rennes (France) to develop visions and actions on more sustainable water management. These cities in the east, centre, south, north and west of Europe realise that such a task is not only the job of the municipality or the local water company but of all parts of the local society.

To improve communication between all these stakeholders, each city organised a two-day workshop during which the problems, opportunities, barriers and challenges for water management at local level, both now and in the future were identified. Participants ranged from technicians involved in water management in their daily work to politicians, city planners to business representatives, farmers to environmental groups and individual citizens. After all, as we are all part of the problem, we are all part of the solution!

The European Union realises that this is the case too and, in the recently adopted Water Framework Directive, requires public participation in the drawing up of river basin management plans. The WATER workshops can be seen as one way of involving the public in the debate on how water in their city should be managed in the future.