Press Release AQUARES
Completion of the first phase of the project 6/2018 - 8/2021
The launch of the Aquares project took place on 7th and 8th June 2018 with a kick - off meeting of all consortium partners. The meeting took place in Murcia, Spain, under the organization of the project's lead partner Regional Government of Murcia, Ministry of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Environment, General Directorate of Water. The program of the meeting consisted of introducing the individual partners, getting acquainted with the project activities and involving the partners in the activities. The work plan and its implementation for the period were determined. During the first phase of the project, the individual partners focused mainly on working with stakeholders and communicating with regional & local authorities in the field of water management through its reuse. The long-term goal of the project is to benefit from opportunities in the water market and ensure the protection of water resources.
Meetings took place across the consortium of partners during this period, which enabled the exchange of experiences - study visits, site visits, workshops and project meetings. A total of 55 examples of good practice can be found on the project website at the moment, which the partners share with each other, but also with the public. The outputs of the first phase project also include Online Toolkit on the evaluation of Water reuse investments for regions promoting Water efficiency and 5 joint thematic studies and analyses reports on territorial needs and opportunities for Water reuse pathways. The main outputs of the project are the action plans of the partners, which can also be found here.
The cooperation between the partners in the first phase of the project took place according to the set schedule and the communication and cooperation with the stakeholders was managed by each partner individually. A more significant complication for implementation of the project was the pandemic situation. Due to the fact that it was not possible to travel to partner countries, it was necessary to move the activities to the online space. Due to this situation, the first phase was extended by 3 months - until the end of August 2021.
Launch of the second phase of the project 9/2021 - 5/2023
The individual activities of the partners will be launched at the beginning of the second phase of the project, which will lead to the implementation of action plans.
An action plan is a document providing details on how the lessons learnt from the cooperation will be implemented in order to improve the policy instrument tackled within a given region. The document specifies the nature of the actions to be implemented, their timeframe, the players involved, the costs (if any) and funding sources (if any).
Action plans were prepared during phase 1 of the project, based on the experiences shared among partners. They are then implemented mainly during phase 2.
Action plans and their implementation
The partners' action plans have been approved across the consortium and reflect the needs of each region for the use of grey water. In the second phase of the project, the partners focus primarily on the implementation of activities that are necessary for the implementation of action plans. These are ambitious plans that cover a wide range of grey water uses. Topics such as: Guidelines for municipalities on sustainable and integrated stormwater management, integrate international solutions of the AQUARES project into to the Policy instrument European Funds, implementation of a Water reuse plant, school campaigns about the importance of Water sources protection, floodable parks in different municipalities, rainwater drainage improvement, promote efficiency in Water management through the implementation of Water reuse strategies in tourism facilities, support for municipalities and businesses to develop bluegreen infrastructure projects, etc. All these actions will require considerable funds for their implementation. It will be an amount higher than EUR 39 million that would be mobilized.
Useful project links:
If you are interested in the AQUARES project or you are interested in planned events or the topic of water recycling and reuse, follow us on the websites of Interreg Europe, the Regional Development Agency of the Pardubice Region, or on the social networks Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
https://www.interregeurope.eu/aquares/
https://www.facebook.com/projectAQUARES/
https://twitter.com/AquaresEurope
https://www.linkedin.com/in/projectaquares/
