Reuris Revitalization of Urban River Spaces

About Project

For decades, urban rivers in CE were seen as a threat rather than benefit. Thus, despite the fact that such areas are particularly important or often the only functioning or potential reservoirs of biodiversity and open space in the city, degraded or abandoned riparian areas are common in CE cities.
The issue of urban river space management is the more complicated because river valleys were seriously modified, and revitalisation of such places needs solving complex environmental and socio-economic problems. Regardless of the specificity of a given city and river, the strategic approach to solving such issues should be subject to common transnational cooperation.
The awareness of the need and possibility of restoring riparian areas to function as ecological corridors and human-friendly areas is becoming ever more common. Thus, active protection and restoration of such areas is one of the basic kinds of activities for shaping spatial order and sustainable development of cities.

Degradation of riverside areas in cities stems from long-lasting past practice of using rivers mainly as drop sites for municipal sewage (inadequate sewage treatment technology falling behind rapid industrial progress), perceiving rivers as sources of threats (e.g. flooding), as well as lack of spatial order and lack of a coherent strategy for managing urban river spaces.
Progress in pro-ecological technologies (esp. wastewater treatment and management) and increase of social welfare in CE give a chance for restoring the proper functions and natural heritage of urban rivers and their sustainable integration within urban space.

REURIS, which falls into area of intervention 3.1., is necessary for the involved regions because:
1. the abovementioned problems exist in all involved regions,
2. none of the regions has developed a full set of tools for multidimensional (economic, engineering, social involvement, policymaking, spatial planning, etc.) management of urban river spaces,
3. similar environmental and political conditions and similar socio-economic trends across CE as well as the tendency for integration result in the fact that strategies of water areas management in one region can be applied in other regions.

• The project embraces categories of waters and types of urban river spaces commonly existing across the whole area of Central Europe.
• The value of the project stems from the fact that, with each partner sharing experience about their individual and specific water management problem, a common approach will be elaborated which can be fully applicable across all CE countries.

• Regardless of the differences in social welfare, all regions can learn and help in the process of elaborating methods of achieving social consensus on urban river spaces.

Main target groups:

1. City inhabitants & users of river spaces in CE cities. Needs: increase of quality of life by increase of quality of urban river spaces,
2. Municipal & regional decision-makers. Needs: creating plannistic, engineering, economic and social tools to implement undertakings devoted to restoring green-blue axes,
3. Spatial planners, both practitioners and creators of innovative approaches and solutions,
4. Specialists (economists, sociologists, engineers, water administrators, naturalists, hydrologists, geologists, etc.) involved in actions for river spaces,
5. Local and regional political leaders,
6. NGOs interested in organising pro-social activities for revitalisation of riparian areas.

Indirect beneficiaries:

1. Owners and users of land adjacent to urban river spaces,
2. Businesses interested in economic activisation of adjacent areas,
3. Research institutions dealing with multidisciplinary fields embracing environmental,social and economic sciences.

Transnational co-operation.

The problem tackled by the project is linked both to sustainable social development and implementation of the WFD. The nature of catchment and spatial conditions are independent of national boundaries.
On the contrary,a given problem,e.g. degraded small rivers in urban postindustrial areas or social pressure for restoring recreational possibilities involving contact with water are present in each of CE countries.
Thus,solving common problems, expected to yield implementation of common strategies and directives, incl. those connected with sustainable river areas management, needs to involve transnational transfer of knowledge and know-how.
The problem of sustainable urban river areas management in CE has not yet witnessed a system approach, mainly because it requires a multidisciplinary approach and involvement of not only specialists from various fields of environmental, economic and social sciences, but also broad engineering knowledge and effective procedures of social involvement.
Individual countries can demonstrate own achievements in selected disciplines. However, actual value will only stem from integrating best practices and experiences of each country's experts in selected specific fields.

Social dimension of sustainability.

We expect that organising a local community around a positive undertaking will contribute to solving many existing local conflicts as well as to improving the mechanisms of functioning of local communities and increasing the degree of their integration.

Innovative elements.

Process-oriented innovation: creating procedure&methodology embracing all stages from general studies of local catchment conditions,through detailed analyses for individual parts of river spaces,design works,implementation and monitoring of implementation.
Goal-oriented innovation: in contrast to earlier programs realised in CE for urban rivers and their surroundings, the project ends with realising pilot objects (or at least a detailed technical project-Brno) and conclusions. Therefore, there is a link between study stage and practice (engineering and social practice).
Context-oriented innovation: multidisciplinarity of the expert teams with simultaneous involvement of a broad range of stakeholders. Context-oriented innovation is also reflected by solving a problem from the field of common interest of politicians, planners, environmental managers, water administrators, communal services, NGOs and local dwellers and creation of common means of communication among those groups.

Priorities and areas of intervention of Central Europe programme - location of REURIS project:

Priority 3: Using our Environment Responsibly
Area of intervention P3.1: Developing a High Quality Environment by Managing and Protecting Natural Resources and Heritage

REURIS project history.

• The project idea - early 2007 - Brno,
• Consultations by e-mail - Polish, Czech and German partners; July 2007 - a proposal formulated by Brno: GIG as the leader partner,
• 2-day's seminar in Katowice: January 2008 (6 partners present, presentations delivered by 8 partners),
• Simultaneous work and consultation via e-mail - till end of March,
• 15th of March: Application Form for Central Europe available,
• 30 of March: meeting in Wrocław for potential leaders of Central Europe 1st call applications (a representative of GIG),
• Application submitted to JTS in Vienna - 1st call: 14/04/2008,
• Preliminary acceptance by Monitoring committee: - July 2008 - numerous improvements necessary (incl. budget, actions, investments, etc.),
• Project REURIS duration: 01/09/2008 - 31/08/2011,
• Application Form improved, changes accepted by JTS - September 2008,
• Requested documents (e.g. co-financing statements) updated and accepted - October 2008.

 

Do you know that...

As a rule, successful implementation of revitalisation activities result in increase of biodiversity level in urban river valley, landscape attractiveness and local public interest in development of the area. In the same time the economic value of surrounding properties also increases.