Improving the European Rivers Water Quality through Smart Water Management Policies (BIGDATA 4RIVERS)

One of the Europe’s most relevant resources are the rivers that cross it. They are not only the main responsible for the rich and diverse European natural ecosystems but also the main source of the water used by the population and population activities. Water is a scarce resource that must be protected and reused and in this context the preservation of the quality of the European rivers’ water is a major concern of local, regional, national and even European authorities.

The project aims to go forward in the Water Directives implementation proposing the promotion of a smart water management. The overall objective of the project is to exchange experiences and good practices between partners in the field of the efficiency of the water systems, to adapt those good practices and apply the lessons learnt to each partner reality through the development of individual action plans and to promote their application through the partners’ policy instruments. BIGDATA4RIVERS is, in essence, a driver for the generation and exchange of information and knowledge enabling better planning processes and decision-making regarding the local/regional water management. The interregional learning process will allow partners to learn and support each other based on their own experiences in the EU Water Framework directives implementation.

The project main outputs are:

• Joint analytical report aiming at identifying the main rivers’ water management policies in the project regions and compare the application level of the water sector European directives allowing partners to identify opportunities & improvement needs of their policy instruments (PI);
• Exchange of experiences activities (site visits, knowledge transfer session and interregional workshop)