About iWater project

Cities in the Baltic Sea region are facing common challenges of increasing stormwater floods and degradation of natural resources and infrastructure caused by climate change and densified urban areas. Urban development tends to remove the vegetation that intercepts, slows and returns rainfall to the air through evaporation and transpiration. These changes not only increase storm water runoff, but also accelerate the rate at which runoff flows across the land. Further, the trend in land development towards densifying urban areas and increasing impervious surfaces reduce the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil and groundwater, thus reducing the amount of water that recharges aquifers and feeds stream flow during periods of dry weather.

Urbanization affect storm water quality by increasing both the concentration and types of pollutants carried by runoff, while the loss of the original topsoil and vegetation removes a valuable filtering mechanism for stormwater runoff. Urban development changes watersheds in a multitude of ways, and generic solutions cannot manage all the impacts. Besides, cities in Baltic Sea Region are facing a problem of dispersed storm water management responsibility.

Integrated Stormwater Management (iWater) project improves the urban planning in the cities of the Baltic Sea region through development of comprehensive stormwater management system which is integrated into the urban development processes of the city at all levels.

 

Project Activities

  • Improvement of urban stormwater planning processes;
  • Development of 7 stormwater strategies;
  • Adoption of new stormwater planning approaches and tools;
  • Setting the evaluation criteria for a peer review within the stormwater management;
  • Capacity development and exchange of the best stormwater management practices;
  • Dissemination of project results to other Baltic Sea Region cities and EU.

Funding:   INTERREG Central Baltic Programme 2014-2020

Budget:     EUR 2.3 million

Duration:  December 2015 – May 2018

The iWater project has an EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region Flagship status for Horizontal Action Climate.