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BSR WATER kicked-off in Riga

5 April, 2019 - 11:00

BSR WATER — Platform on Integrated Water Cooperation successfully kicked-off in the city of Riga on 27–29 November 2018. Three-day event involved careful planning of the upcoming years of platform project implementation based on the expertise of partners, focuses of involved projects and indicated aims to achieve through the platform cooperation.

BSR WATER aims to enhance continuous cross-sectoral cooperation in smart water management providing a possibility for transnational experience exchange, sharing of good practices and solutions, as well as delivering comprehensive overview of the current and future policy contexts and their impacts in the BSR countries. The platform is funded by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme.

The partnership of BSR WATER involves ten important local and regional actors:

  • The project is led by UBC Sustainable Cities Commission, which is responsible for the project management, but also communication, outreach and engagement of the BSR actors into the platform activities;
  • HELCOM facilitates regional policy dialog on sustainable water management by developing policy recommendations for nutrient recycling and recommendations on hazardous substances;
  • Three universities — Technical University Berlin, University of Tartu and Gdansk University of Technology — work on synthetizing content on nutrient and sludge handling, storm water management and energy efficiency for boosting further uptake of recent and innovative technologies in the regional water sector;
  • Cities of Helsinki and Riga represent forerunners in implementing innovative water-related solutions;
  • SYKLI — Environmental School of Finland supports engagement and awareness raising in the platform;
  • State Company “Mineral” and municipal institution ECAT-Kaliningrad coordinate work with Russian stakeholders in the water sector.

All partners represent projects in wastewater and stormwater management, nutrient management as well as climate adaptation issues, the development of which has been funded by the EU through different funding programmes (Interreg Baltic Sea Region, Central Baltic and South Baltic Programmes, as well as South East Finland-Russia ENPI). Four projects involved in the consortium have been granted the flagship status from either PA “Nutri” or HA “Climate” for their importance and relevance for the Baltic Sea Region’s sustainable development.

The representative of Interreg BSR Programme Elena Kolosova joined the Kick-off to support the discussions with the strategic point of view of the funding programme highlighting in her presentation the importance of capitalisation on single projects by synthesizing their outputs and sharing the experiences.

The process of sharing the experiences and practices that had been developed in each project continued throughout the whole event, both in the context of discussing technological outputs and piloted practices, and for the methods of engagement tested in the projects' internal and external communication. The exchange of experiences and new ideas is approached in BSR WATER from two sides of the project implementation: first, by collecting cases in smart water treatment and management implemented in the Baltic Sea Region, and second, through developing policy recommendations for nutrient recycling and hazardous substances for HELCOM policy work.

Good to know

The platform unites the following projects:

IWAMA – Interactive Water Management

BEST – Better Efficiency for Industrial Sewage Treatment

VillageWaters – Water emissions and their reduction in village communities

RBR – Reviving Baltic Resilience

iWater – Integrated Storm Water Management

ManureStandards – Advanced manure standards for sustainable nutrient management and reduced emissions

CliPLivE – Climate Proof Living Environment