PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Climate change has an impact on the frequency of flooding across Europe with around 200 catastrophic flood events recorded since 2000. Over the past few decades, overflowing rivers and heavy storms have increased becoming common natural disasters, leading to loss of life and having a high economic cost.
In Italy, the national climate change adaptation strategy indicates that the main areas at risk of flooding include the Po River valley and the Alpine and Apennine areas (where flash floods are common). In urban areas soil sealing preventing water from being absorbed in the earth compounds the impact of heavy rainfall events. In the Veneto region, short lasting floods have increased as a result and the extent of the flooded area has increased. A range of flood events affected the project areas, located in the Piedmont part of the Bacchiglione–Brenta river basin. The 2010 flood resulted in the death of 3 people and more than 150 000 animals, with an economic cost of around €429 million.
OBJECTIVES
The overall objective of the LIFE BEWARE project was to implement the EU strategy on adaptation to climate change in regards to flood risks by increasing water infiltration and storage in urban and rural areas. The project aimed to actively involve local communities in implementing Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM) in Santorso and Marano Vicentino, as well as other EU municipalities.
The project’s objective was to seek to create the favourable local administrative, financial and technical environment for NWRM. Best practices would demonstrate how to ensure that communities are safe from flood risks and the role that they can play in achieving EU climate change goals. These actions would be then supported in other areas of Italy and elsewhere in Europe.
RESULTS
The LIFE BEWARE project demonstrated the implementation of EU climate change adaptation policy, to reduce flood risk by increasing water infiltration and storage in urban and rural areas in Italy, and by actively involving local communities in these actions. The project team implementing six urban Natural Water Retention Measures (NWRM) in Santorso and Marano Vicentino (province of Vicenza, Veneto), which will be continuously monitored to demonstrate their effectiveness. Two additional NWRMs, specifically raingardens, were implemented in Santorso as a replication activity. The project team also successfully implemented NWRMs in a farming area, creating a water retention basin of about 2 200 m3 at Giavenale di Schio, to store water during floods. The water would then be used for irrigation during droughts.
Monitoring demonstrated the effectiveness of the water reservoir, and also a positive increase in species of flora and fauna in the area.
The project team demonstrated a participative strategy in the municipalities of the Altovicentino area, involving citizens and stakeholders from different sectors. This allowed the team to define new building codes, since adopted by the two project municipalities, and concrete strategies for the mitigation of flood risk and sustainable water management. The participatory approach enabled the co-design of the Altovicentino Mayors Adapt Strategy, identifying key actions, setting common priorities and proposing solutions for the future Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP). Project solutions were integrated into the Altovicentino Agreement Plan, which foresees the adoption of the strategy in the whole Altovicentino area and the promotion and financing of other NWRMs.
The project team published a comprehensive manual, which can be used to help other municipalities to implement NWRMs in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. The approach involving farmers to create new water reservoirs, such as the one built in the project, was proposed for the National Strategic Plan for Rural development.
More than 1 000 citizens were actively involved in the various project events as a result of the participatory process. About 3 300 people also visited the project sites. Farmers and technicians were successfully involved in the different workshops and training activities. The intervention sites were used to raise awareness, by implementing the “hydraulic restoration tour”, which after the project was integrated into a wider initiative, the Water Museum of Venice, which in 2018 became a “flagship initiative” of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme: the Global Network of Water Museums.
The Italian Ministry of Ecological Transition proposed the project as a best practice in their initiative “Mettiamoci in Riga”. The project team also established relevant synergies at regional level, in particular with ANCI (Italian association of municipalities) of Veneto, and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Abruzzo regions.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication plan (see "Read more" section).
