Virtual UFZ Workshop "Decentralised Water Management in Neighbourhoods"

The RES:Z project Leipzig BlueGreen, led by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, organised a virtual workshop on 26.10.2020 on the topic of "Decentralised water management in the neighbourhood". The participants from science, business and local government talked about blue-green solutions for sustainable neighbourhoods.

Urban growth and climate change bring new challenges: flood risks due to heavy rainfall, heat islands and drought stress for urban green spaces, as well as an increase in the risk of combined sewer overflows. In the area of conflict between heavy rainfall and drought, it is becoming increasingly important to manage water in the city in a decentralised manner and in accordance with a natural water balance. The funding measure "Resource Efficient Urban Neighbourhoods - RES:Z" of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research addresses these problems, among others. In RES:Z, 12 inter- and transdisciplinary projects involving more than 20 model municipalities are being funded throughout Germany. One of the projects is the Leipzig BlueGreen project, which is using a co-design approach with the city of Leipzig and the investor of a new neighbourhood to investigate how sustainable water and energy management should be designed at neighbourhood level. In order to promote the exchange of municipal partners in RES:Z in particular, the Environmental and Biotechnological Centre at the UFZ organised an interdisciplinary virtual workshop in which 130 interested parties from science, business and local government took part. The focus was on short presentations on the latest developments of multifunctional blue-green infrastructures (BGI) for dealing with rainwater and wastewater in the neighbourhood. The programme was composed of presentations by speakers from the UFZ Leipzig, the HCU Hamburg, the FH Münster, the TU Munich, the TU Darmstadt and the Eawag Zurich. In the intensive discussion, the need for further research also became clear: How can a systematic implementation of BGI also succeed in existing neighbourhoods? Which legal framework conditions would have to be adapted to facilitate implementation? How can an intelligent operational management of multifunctional BGI look like and who is responsible for it? The feedback survey revealed a great interest in continuing and deepening the topics of water-sensitive urban planning. We are happy to take up this interest and will inform you about further events in early 2021.