Dear SuSanA community,

We at Eawag are looking for so-called “lighthouse initiatives”, i.e. successful examples of onsite urban water management (UWM) systems in “industrialised” as well as in “emerging” contexts.

• Conversely to “pilot”(technology tested at lab-scale, practical application tests) or “demonstration” projects (revealing key market, economic and regulative hurdles to diffusing the technology) lighthouse initiatives are technologically mature solutions that have already addressed(some) key market, economic and regulative hurdles, but lack an enabling environment and widespread legitimacy to diffuse the technology.
• Instead of serving only a house or block, they are operated at the minimum for a neighborhood or city district level (fully developed value chain comparable with the fully mature, centralized approach).
• In addition, they can create visibility and can have an impact beyond their immediate context, that it can inspire and guide similar initiatives looking to replicate its core feature.

The Lighthouse Project@Eawag aims at collecting systematic evidence on how onsite UWM systems can be best implemented in cities i. By systematically cross-comparing and disentangling the context-specific and generic factors that are backstopping a successful implementation and sustainable operation of onsite UWM systems in different contexts, the Lighthouse Project aims to conceptualise, identify, assess and synthesise international best practices of lighthouse projects for the adoption of onsite UWM systems worldwide.

Examples for the industrialised context (see https://run4life-project.eu/demosites/ ) are projects in Hamburg, Ghent, Helsingborg and Sneek. For “emerging contexts” the situation is more difficult. We have good contacts to India, from where we’ll probably have a few promising projects. However, having examples from other countries or even regions would be very beneficial!

Any interesting initiatives you may know would be much appreciated.
Please send them to vasco.schelbert@eawag.ch .
 

Hi Dorothee,

When you say "urban water management", do you mean wastewater management as well as drainage, or do you also mean drinking water treatment and supply aspects? Please clarify, thanks.
(see also a thread started by Depinder on urban water and wastewater planning )

Elisabeth 

Hi Elisabeth
The project is part of a larger project which looks at  water and sanitation innovations for non-grid solutions. So the focus is on non-grid (on the permise). We are intersted in integrated solutions meaning looking at interactions between water, sanitation and potentially also organic and temperature streams. But it is very difficult to find good case studies and example looking only on sanitation (or water) are also relevant for us.
I will check if we could share the list and the detailed criteria for selection of examples here in order to make it easier for others to add on....
Thank you!
Dorothee

For an industrialized context maybe the Christophorus Haus of the Miva in Austria.

To follow up on my previous post.
The project has not yet defined the criteria how we select specific examples. But the three criteria listed below are compulsory:
the example should be of a certain scale (approx. 200 people), have a long-term perspective in terms of visibility and impact and have a systemic set-up that integrates the new technology into a matching socio-economic and institutional context. Ideally, they should look at different water and wastewater streams in an integrated way.
Here is the list of examples we have so far for the industrialised context, if you have any other example, please let us know!

• Netherlands: Sneek, Lemmerweg-ost and Noorderhoek
• Sweden: Helsingborg, Oceanhamnen
• Belgium: Ghent, Nieuwe Dokken
• Germany: Hamburg, Jenfelder Au
• Canada: Edmonton, Waterwerkx

Dorothee

I know of these projects:

• Soil in Port au Prince (Haiti)
• Umande Trust in Nairobi (Kenia) 

For both you can find lots of posts on this forum.

Geert