Successful second RECONECT project meeting

From 8th to 10th of May 2019 the second RECONECT General Assembly took place in Zwolle, the Netherlands. The objective of this research and innovation project is to show how Nature Based Solutions (NBS) help to decrease the use of traditional ‘grey infrastructure’ and become cleaner, environmentally friendlier, greener and still provide a safe place for people to live.

RECONECT demonstrates the effectiveness of Nature Based Solutions against hydro-meteorological risks. The project aims to rapidly enhance the European framework on NBS by demonstrating, referencing, upscaling and exploiting large-scale NBS in rural and nature areas. RECONECT started in September 2018 as an EU funded Horizon2020 project and it will be carried out in five years.

The IJssel Delta

The meeting took place in one of the projects’ demonstrator locations: the IJssel delta in The Netherlands. It is one of the areas in which nature-based solutions have been implemented previously, in this case as part of the Dutch ‘Room for the River’ project. Throughout the RECONECT project, monitoring on the effectiveness of such nature-based solutions will be performed. The IJssel acts as one of the benchmarks to those European and other international rivers where NBS have are not yet been implemented.

At the RECONECT meeting, the Special Enjoy for International Water Affairs of the Netherlands, Henk Ovink, participated. “Water is social, cultural, environmental and of course economic”, according to mr. Ovink. He presented important data on climate change and floods that underline the urgency of the global situation and the importance of cooperation of all stakeholders to reach the secure environments.

After the introductory sessions, the meeting entered its operational phase: presentation by experts, twinning of Demonstrator and Collaborator-case study areas and parallel working in groups. Noteworthy was the field trip on the second day to the IJssel River Basin. We have visited two locations: Veessen-Wapenveld and Reevediep of the Room for the River project. On the third and final day a wrap-up summary of the progress in all work packages was presented, including an overview of the expected work in the coming months.

HydroNET

HydroLogic Research will use the HydroNET platform and crowd sourcing app WaterDetective to provide weather-forecast information, mobile monitoring facilities and smart data visualizations. Using our ICT products, we will help the project case studies to monitor local events and crowdsource information. HydroNET is thus one of the data and information providing platforms of RECONECT.

More information about RECONECT can be found on the website http://www.reconect.eu/

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 776866.