WaterMan – promotes the reuse of water in the Baltic Sea Region. In the project public authorities and water companies develop model strategies to reuse water and recirculate retained water.
The project „Promoting water reuse in the Baltic Sea Region through capacity building at the local level – WaterMan” is being implemented from 01.01.2023 to 31.12.2025 under the Interreg Baltic Sea Region programme 2021-2027 ; Priority 2 Water-smart societies; Objective 2.1 Sustainable waters
This Interreg BSR initiative adds a new element to water management that can make water supply more climate resilient. The key actors for water reuse are local authorities and water companies, for most of which the topic is still a novelty. WaterMan will supply them with knowledge and tools to develop strategic approaches and implement concrete measures that bring water reuse into practice.
WaterMan Budget:
- Total: 4.38 Million EUR
- ERDF: 3.50 Million EUR
Overall goal: To promote the reuse of water in the Baltic Sea Region and elaborating local model strategies for water reuse, which combine:
- Measures for the reuse of treated water
- Measures for the recirculation of retained water
- Promoting stakeholder & consumer acceptance
- Processing the results into a „BSR Water Reuse Toolbox“
- Pro-actively disseminating the developed approaches & tools to
- Municipalities / local authorities
- Local water companies
Partnership:
The project involves 43 organizations from all over BSR countries and implements 10 pilot activities.
The backbone of the WaterMan partnership is “hands-on” partners from the local level (local authorities, water companies), which will become “frontrunners” in the promotion of water reuse in the Baltic Sea Region. In the framework of the project, they team up with (a) domain experts that supply them with the necessary expertise, and (b) relevant umbrella organizations that support them in disseminating the project results to further interested local authorities and water companies in the BSR.
Location:
Geographically, WaterMan focuses on the southern parts of the BSR (southeast SE, DK, DE, PL, LT, LV, EE). This concentration on homogenous geology & landscape type will make peer learning and knowledge transfer more effective.
Capacity building project:
The WaterMan capacity-building process involves a transnational peer learning process. Municipalities and water companies from 6 countries will, assisted by R&D institutions/domain experts, co-create:
(1) Exemplary water reuse strategies for selected model regions that combine measures for (a) reuse of treated water (b) recirculation of retained water (c) promoting stakeholder & consumer acceptance for water reuse.
(2) A set of complementary pilot measures for water reuse that depict typical use cases, and that adapt, test and validate concrete solutions for utilization in the BSR. The results are processed into a “BSR Water Reuse Toolbox”. It gives other local authorities & water companies concrete guidance on how to foster water reuse and is proactively & widely disseminated to them.
Organization role:
As rainwater using in Latvia is still a relatively new and so far little used or, could even say, unused resource, the Kurzeme Planning Region plans to accumulate knowledge and experience during this project, to summarise it and develop a rainwater management strategy at the end of the project.
Saldus municipality will increase its knowledge on rainwater reuse and will carry out an experimental or pilot activity in Saldus town – building a fountain using treated rainwater.
More information about the project:
WEB: https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/waterman/
Lead Partner organization:
Region Kalmar County, Regional development department, Sweden
Project manager, Communication manager Tobias Facchini;
Region Kalmar County tobias.facchini@regionkalmar.se, T: +46480448383
Local WaterMan Partner:
Kurzeme planning region, project manager Aija Neilande, aija.neilande@kurzemesregions.lv, T.: +371 26147139
