EviBAN

EviBAN will combine results from Norway, Finland, France and South Africa to help water managers chose the most sustainable way forward. The project will use case studies in the four countries to learn more about how to handle stormwater when it rains too much and increase water resources when it rains too little. The common ground will be use of nature based solutions.

In Finland and Norway, we will continue from existing projects on stormwater management using data from existing test sites, as well as generating new data from our own tests. In Finland there will be a PhD student that will participation in field campaigns and modelling of urban stormwater together with researchers from the other partners in the project.

In the French case study, infiltration and further treatment in the soil of the effluent from the local wastewater treatment plant is used to protect the water quality in the sea. This is of great importance to local oyster production and may be of wider interest. The French partners will work with local stakeholders to increase the knowledge of this type of water management.

The French knowledge is also useful for increasing the groundwater resources by infiltration in the groundwater aquifer. This will be the case in South Africa where they are threatened by lack of water in dry periods. The project partners will study how infiltration during periods with heavy rain can be used to supplement the groundwater and increase the available water resources in dry periods.

All water management measures need to be adapted to local conditions and include the priorities of local stakeholders to be sustainable. In EviBAN we will work with local representatives and include governance measures in the evaluations. The different water management solutions will be compared in an integrated sustainability assessment which will be part of a toolbox for adaptive water management that will be useful for local water managers, policy makers, consultants and scientists.