On 29th September 2022, the iBATHWATER consortium organized a hybrid event to explain the main outcomes of the project. The intention of the event was to reach an audience at national level, and for this reason the language was Spanish.

A total of 74 people attended the meeting, either online or presential. The day was divided in 2 sessions, one dedicated to bathing waters management and the other to the management of urban sewage systems. The first session counted on presentations, besides the ones about the project, of DG ENV explaining the current policies at European level related to bathing waters, and the World Health Organization giving a global overview.

The second session had as key speaker the Spanish Ministry of Environment explaining the upcoming new Reglamento del Dominio Público Hidráulico. At the end, a round table was held with representatives from the academics (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), Barcelona City Council, Catalan Water Agency, AEOPAS and Aqua Publica Europea.

On 12th May 2022, Aqua Publica Europea and Barcelona Cicle de l’Aigua, the public operator from Barcelona (Spain) organized the WATER ERASMUS Technical Workshop on Bathing Waters, to discuss the role of public water operators in ensuring clean coastal and inland waters for bathers.

In the broader context of ongoing review of the Bathing Water Directive by the European Commission, the WATER ERASMUS Technical Meeting started by reviewing the challenges and perspectives for safe bathing waters with institutional experts and moved on to a technical exchange among water operators who shared their technical and governance approaches to contribute to clean seas and rivers, in particular considering the impact of combined sewer overflows.

On 5th April 2022, KWB organized, jointly with Digital Water City and Water Europe, a webinar with more than 200 attendees with the following purposes:

• explore the benefits of digital innovations such as online sensors, machine learning, process-based models and mobile apps for managing microbial safety of bathing water sites;
• promote an open-source data-driven early-warning system, which is currently developed within digital-water.city and iBathwater projects; and
• draw concrete policy recommendations for the ongoing revision of the Bathing Water Directive (BWD).

12th Mai, 2022

Online

 

Aqua Publica Europea and Barcelona Cicle de l’Aigua, the public water operator from Barcelona (Spain) are organising our next WATER ERASMUS Technical Workshop on Bathing Water.

 

The EU benefits from very high quality of bathing waters – the European Environment Agency’s State of Bathing Waters report 2020 highlights that 93 of bathing sites meet minimum water quality standards. Clean bathing water is critical for health, the environment but also local development. At the same time, bathing water is the final destination of the pollution accumulated upstream and climate change also affects water quality with more frequent and more intense heavy rainfall and risks of stormwater overflows. Many public water operators have responsibilities related to, or affecting, bathing waters and are committed to supporting their municipalities in ensuring safe waters for locals and visitors.

 

In the broader context of ongoing review of the Bathing Water Directive by the European Commission, the WATER ERASMUS Technical Meeting will start by reviewing the challenges and perspectives for safe bathing waters with institutional experts and move on to a technical exchange among water operators who will share their technical and governance approaches to contribute to clean waters, in particular considering the impact of combined sewer overflows.

 

Agenda

 

10:30 Welcome and general presentation – Aqua Publica Europea & Barcelona Cicle de l’Aigua
10:35 – 11:00 Session 1 – Setting the scene: challenges and perspectives for bathing water quality
• Review of the EU Bathing Water Directive, Maja Feder, Policy Officer, European Commission
• Q&A session
11:00 – 11:10 Coffee break
11:10 – 12:20 Session 2 – Technical and governance approaches by APE members
Exchange with
• LIFE iBATHWATER project / BCASA – Spain
• Aguas de Gaia – Portugal
• SIAAP – France
• City of Paris – France
• City of Vienna – Austria
12:20 – 12:45 Discussion – all participants
12:55 Conclusions & next steps

 

18-29th April, 2022

Online

On April 2022, the Directorate-General Environment (DG ENV) from the European Commission organized a two-day workshop in order to update the review of the current Bathing Water Directive (BWD). The project iBATHWATER was invited to give a presentation in the session about digitalization, in order to show good practices and methodologies to improve the management of bathing waters, and explain the outcomes of the project with policy implications.
Other sessions and themes addressed related to the BWD were the following: current challenges in monitoring parameters, such as cyanobacteria, risk-based approach to assess the introduction of emerging pollutants and/or microplastics monitoring, how to manage bathing sites with poor quality, the use of social media to inform and empower the public, etc. Around 100 people, mainly local and national authorities, participated in this workshop.

18th April, 2022

Singapore

During the Singapore International Water Week 2022, ADASA present the poster “Advanced urban water management to efficiently ensure bathing water quality: The iBathWater project”

During the Water Convention Posters Sessions, on April 18th, from 15:45 to 17:30, Jordi Cros could explain in person the projects, and answers the questions, to the attendants.

25th November, 2021

Online

On 24th November 2021, Eurecat participated in an online networking event on LIFE projects, presenting the main outcomes achieved to date of the LIFE iBATHWATER project.
The conference covered 12 projects, separated in two different sessions, Waste and Water/Soil, with a common introduction about the LIFE Programme presented by Solon Mias, project manager from CINEA.
At the end of the presentations, participants were invited to one hour networking session to discuss the results and environmental problems addressed in all projects presented.
The event had the participation of around 30 people from different types of entities related to environment-related research and development.

18th October, 2021

Somorrostro beach – Barcelona

On 1st October 2021, Eurecat, ADASA and BCASA participated in a collaboration with EUTOPIA project. The collaboration consisted in the explanation of the project iBATHWATER by the coordinator of the project, Carme Bosch from EURECAT, the company that provides the technology for the measurement of bathing waters quality, and by the sewer and beach manager in Barcelona, BCASA.

8th June, 2021

Virtual

On June 8th, two workshop sessions were held to share the progress and first results of the SCOREWATER project, an H2020 innovation project focused on enhancing the resilience of cities against climate change and urbanization by enabling a water smart society that fulfils European Sustainable Development Goals 3, 6, 11, 12 and 13 and secures future ecosystem services. The workshops are entitled “Decrypting wastewater information in the city of Barcelona” and among others, the synergies with the iBATHWATER project are explained. Specifically, at SCOREwater will be adapted the monitoring of the presence of wet wipes in the sewers already tested in the Life iBATHWATER project by the BCASA partner.