The outcomes of the Final Seminar are available here

Conventional urban water management approaches are struggling to meet the emerging challenges required for sustainability. New discourses on urban water management emphasize the need for a transformative change by moving to a system that manages a diversity of water sources and scales of infrastructure, through an integrative planning approach.

UrbanRain examines the opportunities and challenges regarding the planning for the up-scaling and expansion of rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems as socio-technical devices in order to enhance water management sustainability in urban areas of Europe; although, it is expected that its lessons and recommendations will have a wider, global impact.

The project promises high socio-economic value by:

Increasing the capacity to manage urban water resources and water use efficiency;

Reducing costs for wastewater treatment and disposal, and creating opportunities for low-cost maintenance of green spaces, gardens, etc.;

Opening up for innovative business potential over technical design, and competitiveness over costs of RWH systems;

Promoting learning on innovative forms of RWH between cities/communities;

Building a reflexive governance capacity for adaption to climate change, management of flood/drought occurrences, and ecological sustainability