CEBEDEAU • Water Smart Cities Project

Water Smart Cities Project

(ERDF project, part of the SWaM@Sc project portfolio led by ULg and CEBEDEAU)

Urban areas present a particularly complex challenge in terms of stormwater management. In the face of climate change and increased precipitation intensity, integrated stormwater management is becoming essential in many projects. Both at the European and Walloon levels, nature-based solutions (NBS) are recommended. These solutions restore a pseudo-natural water cycle in cities through infiltration and evaporation, but they also provide related ecosystem services, such as supporting biodiversity, reducing the urban heat island effect, and strengthening social ties.

However, the use of NBS requires mastery of various design techniques, drawing on the hydrodynamics of soil-plant complexes, environmental physics, and hydraulics. Few design offices have expertise in all these different disciplines, and simplified design can often lead to additional costs.

Project goals:

The Water-smart Cities project aims to develop a software solution for the design and dimensioning of stormwater management elements specifically adapted to medium-scale projects. In particular, it will provide urban green space designers with a tool for dimensioning the hydrological regulation services provided by green spaces in urban and peri-urban areas.

The tool developed:

- Will take into account water transfer times through developed areas and offer great flexibility in combining different complementary developments (e.g., multiple storage areas) and different types of developments (e.g., storm basins and nature-based solutions);

- Will have a multifunctional nature in the city, the tool will enable the quantification of other ecosystem services (production support, biodiversity support, heat flow regulation, cultural aspects);

- Will include a module for quantifying the impact of the planned developments on the quality of the water passing through them, with warnings and explanations about the potential impact of the planned development;

- Generate maintenance recommendations associated with the design of urban green spaces.

The CEBEDEAU complements the tool developed by the departments of the University of Liège (HECE & EESP) by integrating the aspect of water quality (Water-Smart Cities – water quality) so that project authors (i) take this aspect into account during design and implementation (ii) quantify the potential impacts of their project on the quality of the receiving environment: surface water or groundwater and soil in the event of infiltration.

Funding:

The budget allocated to the Water Smart Cities project is €939,380, of which €213,256 is for CEBEDEAU, co-financed by the ERDF (40%) and the Walloon Region (35%).

Duration:

The project was launched in autumn 2023 and will end in late 2026.

Our partner in this project :

https://www.aquapole.uliege.be/cms/c_12288518/fr/aquapole-swam-sc

Our others FEDER's financed project :

https://cebedeau.be/fr/blog/article/projet-eau-circularite-pme

https://cebedeau.be/fr/blog/article/projet-aquabiosens