CATCH at Amsterdam International Water Week 2019
This year, the over-arching theme of the AIWW Conference is ‘Implementation of Integrated Solutions by Cities, Industries, Utilities and Financiers: from cases to bankable projects’. The intention is to showcase integrated, feasible approaches, including Integrating Water and Resources management, and Blue-Green solutions for (urban) resilience (climate change adaptation).
The CATCH-project is to be introduced during the Resilient Cities Leader Forum (RCLF) and plays a leading role in one of the AIWW conference workshops. And we are honoured to welcome Gitte Grove Poulsen, Chief Resilience Officer at city of Vejle (Denmark), as CATCH city case presenter.
RCLF table discussion ‘Developing water sensitive futures’
Date: Monday, 4 November 2019, 10:00-11:30.
Following its Resilience Strategy (2016), the city of Vejle is working on social and institutional solutions to facilitate its transition to a water-sensitive future. Like Vejle, cities in the North Sea Region (NSR) mainly focus on dealing with too much water and flooding. However, prolonged heat and dryness during the recent 2018 summer led to drought in many countries across Europe, including the NSR. This was an instant wake-up call for cities in the NSR which must also consider adaptation to more severe droughts and water scarcity.
In a project similar to CATCH, a network of six Australian cities, including the city of Townsville, is developing ‘Water sensitive city visions and transition strategies’. Bearing in mind the differences in regional water challenges, this roundtable will look at the experiences and lessons learned from both ‘water sensitive future’ pilots in the NSR and Australia, which are applicable to the water challenges experienced by cities around the world.
AIWW workshop ‘Benchmarking and navigation in planning of climate adaptation of midsize cities?’
Date: Tuesday, 5 November 2019, 14:45 – 16:00.
During this 75-minute workshop session city representatives are invited for an update about the development of the CATCH decision support tool and the practical experience by the city of Vejle. Goal of the integrative tool is to assist midsize cities in taking the right strategic decisions and to develop tailor made, long term adaptation strategies. The tool testing exercise in three transnational reflection groups will stimulate city-to-city discussion about experience in benchmarking climate action and development of adaptation strategies. The outcome and collected feedback are shared among the CATCH-partnership.