{"id":874,"date":"2020-06-30T10:59:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T09:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/?p=874"},"modified":"2020-06-30T11:40:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-30T10:40:48","slug":"the-water-europe-innovative-water-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/2020\/06\/30\/the-water-europe-innovative-water-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The Water Europe Innovative Water Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From 22 to 26 June, Water Europe organised its annual conference\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/waterinnovationeurope.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Water Innovation Europe<\/a>. This year the conference was turned into an online Innovative Water Week event. The theme was\u00a0<b>A Water-Smart Society\u00a0<\/b><b>for<\/b><b>\u00a0A Post-COVID19 Green Deal<\/b><b>.<\/b>\u00a0It is Europe\u2019s ambition to become the world\u2019s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Commission has agreed\u00a0on\u00a0an ambitious package of measures to transform the economy and society. The COVID-19 crisis was a wake-up call that confirmed the need\u00a0to create a Water Smart Society. The conference focused on different aspects of this Water-Smart Society.\u00a0Every morning the day was started with a panel discussion\u00a0with experts and industry representatives\u00a0on the different themes. The sessions were wrapped up by a member of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/juniorwaterprogramme.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">European Junior Water Programme<\/a>. Each session ended with a small award ceremony for one of the Water Europe Innovation Awards.<\/p>\n<p>The key messages of the conference were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Post-COVID-19 the 3Rs will be: Resist, Recover Reinvent<\/li>\n<li>20% increase in investments\u00a0are required in the water sector to meet with the water supply and sanitation demands in Europe<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>There is\u00a0a\u00a0need for a better understanding of customers as COVID-19 impacted severely on the revenues of water utilities too<\/li>\n<li>The industry sector is embracing water efficiency and reconsidering water priorities. Local outreach is becoming critically important to the sector<\/li>\n<li>By 2050, the demand for food will increase by 60%. The Water-food-energy nexus is becoming the water-food-energy-ecosystem-health nexus. It is important to reduce food wasting as it is also water wasting. Consumers\u00a0have to\u00a0be made aware of the amount of water in their food products<\/li>\n<li>Nature-based solutions must be part of the EU\u2019s recovery agenda. They\u00a0can bridge between a water-smart society and the natural world.\u00a0The\u00a0priority is to avoid further degradation of ecosystems<\/li>\n<li>The importance of water quality is underestimated, and its degradation is affecting society. New technologies and circular processes are required as well as assessment tools<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The time to tackle water pollution is now: technologies and regulations are\u00a0favourable;\u00a0the European Parliament has approved a reuse regulation enabling the move to\u00a0a\u00a0circular economy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The afternoon sessions were filled with Working Group meetings on different topics that Water Europe is working on. Jan Hofman\u00a0co-chaired two working groups:\u00a0Urban Water Pollution (with Lian Lundy of\u00a0Lule\u00e5\u00a0University (SE) and Middlesex University (UK)) and Water Security (with Blanca\u00a0Antizar\u00a0of Isle Utilities). Juliana\u00a0Marcal\u00a0(WISE CDT) gave a presentation on Water Security Assessment methods. This included some results of the 2020 MEng research projects of Josh van der\u00a0Meulen\u00a0and Charlotte Gray (3rd\u00a0year UG Chemical Engineering students). Juliana is contributing to a White Paper on Water Security by the working group. The White Paper will be used to influence policy development in Europe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/watereurope.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Water Europe<\/a>\u00a0was initiated in 2004 by the European Commission. It was a European Technology Platform for water. It is now a member-based (currently 214 from 27 countries) multi-stakeholder platform the whole water value\u00a0chain. The Water Innovation and Research Centre is\u00a0a\u00a0member of College B (Research and Technology Developers).<\/p>\n<p>Jan Hofman<\/p>\n<p>30 June 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From 22 to 26 June, Water Europe organised its annual conference\u00a0Water Innovation Europe. This year the conference was turned into an online Innovative Water Week event. The theme was\u00a0A Water-Smart Society\u00a0for\u00a0A Post-COVID19 Green Deal.\u00a0It is Europe\u2019s ambition to become the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[605,14,576,604,606],"class_list":["post-874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wirc","tag-covid-19","tag-janhofman","tag-water-europe","tag-water-innovation-europe","tag-water-smart-society"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/water\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}