CityNet Press Release III- july 2004 Water – Environment People

CityNet Press Release III- July 2004

Water – Environment - People

5^th Framework Programme

European Commission - Community Research





Environment and Sustainable Development
Key Action: "Sustainable Management and Quality of Water"


CityNet

The Network of European Research Projects on Integrated Urban Water Management

Workshop Seminar

19^th European Junior Scientist Workshop 19th European Junior Scientist Workshop The 19th European Junior Scientist Workshop (19th EJSW) on "Process data and integrated urban water modelling" has been held in Meaux-la-Montagne, France, in the Beaujolais area, approx. 60 km north of Lyon. It was organised by INSA de Lyon as one of the CityNet Accompanying Measures (Work Package 2). Accompanied by 3 seniors, 24 junior scientists (i.e. mainly PhD students) from both the 6 CityNet projects and other external projects and institutions, all of them coming from 11 countries in Europe and Australia, spent 4 days of intensive work. As traditionally in junior scientists workshops, individual presentations were given by each participant on his/her research project. The main modelling topics were urban water systems, hydrology, groundwater pollutant transfer. Further topics were infrastructure assessment and rehabilitation, performance indicators for technical and natural urban water systems, monitoring - data acquisition and validation, model calibration. Group sessions on the "ideal integrated model" were very intense and the results have been presented by 4 juniors at the CityNet senior workshop, on Monday 15 March 2004 in Ghent, Belgium. Reports on the group works and all presented papers are available on the CityNet web site http://citynet.unife.it/ (under "Conferences"). CityNet Management seminar for end-users in Ghent, Belgium -16-17/03/2004 The seminar was opened by Andrea Tilche, the head of the unit 'Water Cycle' at the Research Directorate Environment (European Commission). The first seminar day was mainly dedicated to the CityNet projects. Each of the six CityNet projects was introduced by their respective project co-ordinators. End-users of each project presented their experience from applying the research results. Six discussion sessions were held on the following topics: Risk perception, source control in USWM, systems analysis, modelling, ecological impact assessment, socio-economy. The 100+ participants (50/50 between CityNet partners and externals) were very satisfied with the seminar. More than half of the participants were end-users, a great part not even involved in CityNet projects. Besides a considerable local attendance, most delegates came from the north-western European countries. The participants found the seminar being a good platform for networking activities and a high level of information transfer for direct use. The organisators, TU Dresden (CD4WC) and Aquafin, were quite satisfied with the outcome of the workshop.

End of Care-W Initiative towards FP6

CARE-W Project ended 31/01/2004 The CARE-W project has produced a methodological system and a software toolbox for decision-support for water network rehabilitation. The software consists of a performance indicator tool for surveying and monitoring the general condition of the water network, a system for long term strategic planning of upgrading water assets and a system for selecting and ranking rehabilitation projects. This is supported by tools to predict future failures and to estimate the water supply service reliability. All tools are linked in the ‘CARE-W manager’, where information flow from various data sources are processed in computing tools, which produce an output presentation file. CARE-W has been extensively tested by 13 European end-users, and these tests have provided very valuable information and were used to correct bugs and to increase the relevance of the system for practical needs. It is now being commercialised and other cities and utilities are welcome to utilise CARE-W. Contact: [e-mail] CityNet takes initiative for FP6 proposal On 16 June the 3rd call of the 6th Framework Program has been made public. Among others, the European Commission calls for an Integrated Project (IP) on Integrated Urban Water Management (UWM). Focus is on UWM challenges in metropolitan areas in Europe and mega-cities in developing countries. The CityNet Project Steering Committee has taken an initiative in elaborating a proposal for such an IP. After an initial scoping meeting in Ghent in March 2004 all CityNet partners and supporters have been invited for discussion. The objective is to make the best possible proposal backed by the most competent consortium. The working title of the project is “Water for Billions”. The preliminary discussions resulted in a list of work areas that are likely to be covered in such a project. These are: Appropriate UWM service levels need to be defined and guidelines for stakeholder empowerment developed. Alternatives for urban water systems need to be described including planning approaches and design solutions (“hardware”). Data needs to be collected, turned into useful information, made available to different stakeholders and managed such that appropriate and transparent UWM decisions can be taken (“software”). Institutions need to be built and policies developed that promote good governance and best practise for UWM.

Initiative towards FP7

Implemented solutions need to be assessed in terms of their general applicability and disseminated. Risk analysis and scenario building are, among others, scientific techniques to be applied in the project. Organisations and individuals interested to contribute to this endeavour, are invited to register on the CityNet website including a brief description on their contribution to the proposed project, and/or send it to the CityNet Project Manager: Prof. Sveinung Sægrov ([e-mail]). CityNet invited to participate in discussion towards FP7 CityNet, representing some 50 R&D institutions and some 70 end-users, has been invited by the European Commission to participate in the discussions that ultimately will lead to the definition of the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development. CityNet participated in stakeholder meetings organised by the Commission of which the last one was held on 13 July in Brussels. Contact: Prof. Wolfgang Schilling ([e-mail]; [e-mail]) Contact CityNet Cluster Co-ordinator: http://citynet.unife.it/ [e-mail] or [e-mail] Contact Press Release: [e-mail]

CityNet - The Network of European research projects on integrated urban water management