Evidence based assessment of natural water retention measures for sustainable water management

EviBAN will increase the knowledge on evidence based, sustainable management of water resources. This will be achieved by developing a toolbox for evaluation of adaptive management options and measures that account for impacts of climate change, anthropogenic activities and societal change in different regions of Europe and beyond. The toolbox will have a Governance Assessment Guide; a tool for stormwater management under changing climate with dynamic modelling of NWRM; an ICT tool for SAT & MAR monitoring, and model for performance evaluation; an optimisation tool for NWRM and similar NBS in complex systems; and an integrated sustainability assessment (ISA) including evaluation of ecosystem services (ESS). Optimisation will be based on performance and cost. Measures acting on water quantity and/or quality will be evaluated. Management options will be evaluated by ISA to assess their ability to mitigate negative impacts of human activities and climate change on the water cycle, and contribute towards the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). The project activities will be performed by a multidisciplinary team with researchers, water service providers, public agencies for water and health, and private companies supplying NBS and ICT (Information, Communication Technology) monitoring solutions. The toolbox will be developed, tested and verified using data from case studies from Finland, Norway, France and South Africa to cover diverse conditions with respect to climate, water resources, hydrogeological conditions and water management challenges. EviBAN will thereby enable evaluation of adaptive management options and measures that account for impacts of climate change, anthropogenic activities and societal change in different regions of Europe and beyond.

Project partners
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
SINTEF AS
Aalto University
French Geological Survey (BRGM)
imaGeau
University of Stellenbosch
Antea Group France
Sitowise Oy

Funding
Water JPI 2018 Joint Call - WaterWorks 2017 on “Closing the Water Cycle Gap – Sustainable Management of Water Resources”