WATERGRID

Nature Based Smart Water Grids for Integrated water and drought management

The WATERGRID project is developing a networked system for climate-resilient water management. The use of nature-based solutions and digital technologies is creating standards and strategies for the efficient storage, distribution and reuse of water resources.

WATERGRID

Nations

Partner

Years

The WATERGRID project aims to develop and demonstrate the concept of the ‘Smart Water Grid’ (SWG) for the networking and distribution of water and water reservoirs in a holistic approach. The aim is to enable climate-resilient water management, especially in extreme droughts.

As part of integrated catchment area management, the resource efficiency of nature-based solutions (NBS) is being analysed at eight locations. These are spread across different biogeographical regions (Atlantic, inland, mountainous, Mediterranean) with different types of NBS and water scarcity challenges.

The project will develop protocols and standards for the design, maintenance and operation of SWGs. Fifty-eight innovative NBS will be implemented at five demonstration sites to store water and make it reusable.

As part of continuous monitoring, real-time data from the newly established SWGs will be displayed via a digital platform, and a toolkit on business cases and governance issues as well as a design app will provide support for the planning, establishment and maintenance of new NBS in SWGs. In addition, policy briefs will be developed to anchor the SWG approach at different decision-making levels (EU, national, regional).

Three validation sites will demonstrate the replicability of SWG solutions.

Objectives

Development and testing of the Smart Water Grid (SWG) concept to enable its replication across Europe. To this end, protocols, standards, policy briefs, a digital platform and an app for designing and monitoring smart water grids are being developed for climate-resilient water management. The ultimate goal is a 20% increase in water availability and annual savings of €10.6 million in the EU by 2035.

Tasks of aconium GmbH

aconium GmbH is responsible for managing the Schweriner Seenland validation site. Its tasks include research, data acquisition and stakeholder management. In addition, aconium handles the comprehensive data management of all information collected and acquired in the project and makes it available on a central platform. The company is also responsible for communication management and dissemination.