STREAMS

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As part of their efforts to promote sustainable urban development, the Urban Forums carry out joint awareness-raising actions from time to time. One of these joint projects was STREAMS (Sustainability Through Raising Environmental Awareness in Municipal Settlements), involving 17 of the twenty Urban Forums. This project, co-financed by DG XI of the European Commission, aimed to raise awareness at local level of the importance of sustainable urban water management. The project also aimed to profile the efforts of the European Commission to improve the state of our water resources.

Since the beginning of 1998 the host organisations of the 17 local Urban Forums have been working with local partners to highlight the possibilities for improved local water management. Partner organisations included municipalities, businesses, Chambers of Commerce, research institutes, NGOs, schools, universities, sports clubs, the media and even landscape gardeners!

The local projects tackled a broad spectrum of water problems encountered in the cities and regions where the Urban Forums are based. Some projects were primarily concerned with water quantity problems. For example, in Volos (Greece) continuing infrastructure expansion is needed to keep pace with the rising demand for water, especially in the summer months. The Volos Forum's project sought to raise awareness amongst local people for the need to limit water consumption, both for economic and environmental reasons.

Other projects adopted a water quality problem as their main focus. In Rennes (France), for example, pollution of groundwater by non-agricultural pesticides is a major problem. To address this problem, the Rennes Forum's STREAMS project aimed to raise awareness amongst landscape and amateur gardeners, the local authorities, and small and medium-sized enterprises in the area for the need to reduce their use of pesticides. Other projects addressed both water quantity and quality issues.

The Urban Forums employed a wide variety of awareness-raising techniques to get their message across. In Leicester (United Kingdom), the STREAMS project involved the subsidised sale of water butts for collecting rainwater for use in the garden. The action was so successful, partly due to an ongoing partnership with the local radio station and newspaper, that it was extended to two other cities in the region. Over 19,000 butts were sold with a potential saving of over 9.1 million litres.

The Urban Forum of Espoo (Finland) employed a completely different approach. Reflecting the city's position on the Baltic Sea and its close links with cities in Central and Eastern Europe, the Urban Forum organised an international conference on Water and Waterscapes in the Urban Environment. Delegates from eight countries around the Baltic Sea attended the event which resulted in the Espoo Resolution on water.

Other awareness-raising techniques that were employed include:
poetry competition (Bath)
(expert) workshops (Aalborg)
roundtable discussions (Vienna)
brochures and CD-ROM (Venice)
posters (Charleroi) * educational walks highlighting water in nature reserves (Terni)
cycle tours (Delft)
public events around the rehabilitation of old infrastructure (Granada and Suhl).
A project publication is published; Let's reflect on water, following the same style as earlier Urban Forum Network publications, namely Let's Clear the Air and Let's Tackle Waste, available from the Delft Forum. The publication includes project results, lessons learned and clear advice for others about to embark on an awareness-raising project.