Objectives

The five participating partners face a common concern: that the spatial transformation of rural and urban structures is becoming increasingly laborious and challenging. Increasing urbanisation, the need for more infrastructure, and the pressure for more (and better) nature and recreation areas, means that mono-functional space is becoming less viable. There is a need to develop new approaches to spatial planning and land use.

At the same time, a global change in climate is resulting in increasing intensities of rainfall and storms, interrupted by extended periods of drought (like the summer of 2003), a rise in the peak flow of the rivers, and an accelerated rise of the sea level. Consequently a new type of integral water management is required to avoid economic loss and decreased biodiversity through superfluous water, droughts or bad water quality.

Furthermore, the growing awareness and expertise of the public and other stakeholders demand greater appreciation by spatial planners and water managers, leading to a need for projects to include appropriate participative processes. If these processes are not developed over the coming years, this could easily lead to the creation of poor areas with little spatial quality, limited economic activities and vulnerable, less resilient water systems.

Therefore, the main objective of the programme is as follows:

to demonstrate the role that water can play in regional terrestrial planning, and how water storage areas can be used in a multifunctional way to transform both rural and urban landscapes.

There are three related sub-objectives:

• To improve water management in land transformation projects (with reference to climate change in the 21st century, urbanisation, the EU Water Framework Directive, geomorphological changes, and so on).
• To implement new technologies and policies to improve the availability of water in dry seasons and the prevention of floods and superfluous water in wet seasons.
• To implement participative processes in which the public and other stakeholders are included in the planning process in order to achieve support for new measures.