Key water-smart challenges

High drinking water demand due to dense population, high water demand for agriculture, groundwater overexploitation, water quality deterioration, water scarcity due to droughts, climate change, and urbanization.

Key water-smart opportunities

Establish regional circularity in the water system: Alternative water resources for drinking water supply, improving the existing drinking water production, and secure irrigation by interaction with the urban reuse cycle.

Special Focus

Development of regional concepts for improving and monitoring water-smartness and a more robust water system, with a focus on safe water reuse.

Current status and ambition

Belgium ranks 23rd globally in the 2019 National Water Stress Ranking, and there is a high sense of urgency – at all levels – to work towards more robust water systems. Several concepts are currently explored by the case partners, including the treatment of wastewater for high-end reuse, the improvement of drinking water production to allow year-round water intake thus more independent from variations in water quality supply, and stormwater retention and reuse for agriculture.

Ambition until the end of the project:
Assess the regional water system and its potential for incorporation of water-smart solutions, close water cycles, increasing resilience, and integrating the existing natural water system as a nature-based solution, while ensuring safe reuse. This will be demonstrated on three sites with high transferability potential for the region:
i) effluent upgrading and assessment for the potential use as an additional drinking water source,
ii) multi-stage membrane treatment to improve the robustness of drinking water production and
iii) urban stormwater reuse for agriculture.

Ambition beyond project (upscaling/transferability):
The experiences from the demonstration sites (at Mechelen and Diksmuide) will be used to identify the potential for the valorization of the applied technologies at a larger scale at those and other locations, as well as the implementation of newly identified and demonstrated technologies at other locations in the regional water system. The insights will inform a roadmap for the realization of a systemic smart water management system in Flanders for the coming decennia.