Time flies by – and our B-WaterSmart project is ending. We look back on 4 years in which we have worked intensively to promote water-smartness in European coastal regions and beyond. 48 months of research, meetings, testing, success, and failure in which we have not only achieved a significant impact within our six Living Labs but where the world around us has continued to turn and change too.

We have come a long way in our six Living Labs to demonstrate and enable systemic innovation toward a more water-smart economy and society through active and sustainable Communities of Prac­tice. By performing specialized training activities, we strengthened the knowledge of decision-makers on water-smart solutions. With public events, we raised the society’s awareness of current and future challenges and our water-smart solutions to deal with them.

We developed a broad portfolio of cost-effective technologies and water-smart data solutions to increase the reuse of water and wastewater, to promote the recovery of energy and materials as well as to facilitate a smart management of the water infrastructure. We presented and will continue to present those solutions on the Water Europe Marketplace, the central knowledge portal for water-smart solutions of B-WaterSmart and other European projects.

For each Living Lab, we suggested new or improved target-oriented governance, policies & regulations for achieving water-smart solutions. We also developed practical guidance on societal and behavioural issues related to their acceptance and implementation.

We created an assessment framework that builds on a solid definition of water-smartness and makes it operational. A framework that can assist decision-makers and practitioners in long-term strategic planning toward their vision of a water-smart society.

We explored new business opportunities by systematically assessing all solutions demonstrated within B-WaterSmart for their exploitation potential and supporting solution providers on their route to market.

Today we would like to invite you to our final event B-WaterSmart event in Venice, Italy. Titled: “Realizing a water-smart society: Contributions and approaches from the B-WaterSmart project” we offer public sessions on “Ensuring water for all relevant uses”, “Boosting value creation around water” and “Engaging citizens and actors across all sectors in continuous learning and innovation” on the 18^th of July in Venice.

Please register here for the public event for free latest by the 5^th of July.