In many countries of the North Sea Region the notion that water shortage and drought will, in the future, pose an increasingly pressing problem, gains more and more on importance. Growing population, intensification of land use and changes in global climate will contribute to the problem that can hamper the Region?s development. The common challenge is therefore to develop long-term strategies to optimise the use of fresh water resources.

NO REGRET aims at building common strategies for assuring safeguard supplies of fresh water in regions that indicate various types of water shortage in relation to spatial planning. Currently, several regions in the Netherlands and Germany rely mostly on agriculture where future rural development depends significantly on sufficient water supply for crop production. In Belgium and Denmark water shortage has impact on nature as well as on access to drinking water. Therefore, NO REGRET focuses primarily on sectors like ecology and nature conservation, agriculture and supplies of drinking water. It aims to reduce the impact of fresh water shortage for all these sectors in the North Sea Region.

Expected Outcomes

Because of the fact that there are different water shortage challenges defined in different regions, expected outcomes for the most part depend on the needs of the concrete region, i.e. improved use of water storage possibilities in residential and agricultural area for conservation for dry periods in Groningen; improved insight in availability of water resources and future policies for their protection in North Jutland; securing long-term availability of water resources for irrigation purposes in Lower Saxony. Apart from the individual local results NO REGRET works on achieving common outcomes for all participating regions. It seeks to expand general understanding of the causes and consequences of water shortages and drought through improved insight into data handling and modelling, analyses of scenarios as well as methods to influence politicians and creating acceptance by stakeholders and general public.

Activities

The project?s activities and strategy development are based on two pillars: local pilot projects and transnational learning. NO REGRET pilot projects are implemented in regions where social and economic development is strongly water-dependent. The aim of the regional projects is to investigate the current situation and analyse of long-term scenarios in order to combat shortage of water of proper quality in the region. However, local strategies developed by each project are highly influenced by the process of transnational learning. In that case, despite the fact that all the projects discuss different aspects of water shortage and drought, they are facing similar challenges as far as development of regional actions is concerned. The challenges are divided on three common issues: investigation (calculation of current situation), scenario?s analysis (assessment of social, economic and demographic scenario?s strategies) and social acceptance (involvement of politicians and general public in the acceptance of water shortage as a future challenge). Moreover, the transnational learning is taking place in three theme groups that deal with the three issues. Output of the theme groups will be individual reports with recommendations and practical solutions as well as fundamental transfer of knowledge and experiences from one partner to another.

Reported Outcomes

NO REGRET aims at building common strategies for assuring safeguard supplies of fresh water in regions that indicate various types of water shortage in relation to spatial planning. The general objective is to develop sustainable strategies to improve availability of fresh water. Thus, the aim of the regional projects is to investigate the current situation and analyse of long-term scenarios in order to combat shortage of water of proper quality in the region. The challenges are divided on three common issues: investigation (calculation of current situation), scenario?s analysis (assessment of social, economic and demographic scenario?s strategies) and social acceptance (involvement of politicians and general public in the acceptance of water shortage as a future challenge). Moreover, the transnational learning is taking place in three theme groups that deal with the three issues. Output of the theme groups will be individual reports with recommendations and practical solutions as well as fundamental transfer of knowledge and experiences from one partner to another. All four countries develop long term strategies to optmise the use of the available fresh water resources. Where possible they further dimish the demand of these resources and take short-term no regret measures to pro-actively respond to the lack of fresh water resources. To find sustainable strategies to avoid water shortage, three main uncertainties have to be tackled: statistical, scenario and social uncertainties. The partners exchange knowledge about these uncertainties in three theme groups and explore the impact of the uncertainties on the implementation of measures. Apart from the individual local results NO REGRET works on achieving common outcomes for all participating regions. It seeks to expand general understanding of the causes and consequences of water shortages and drought through improved insight into data handling and modelling, analyses of scenarios as well as methods to influence politicians and creating acceptance by stakeholders and general public. For instance, an agreement with provinces, water boards and municipalities is made upon the making of new calculations about water shortage in the northern part of the Netherlands for the development of new policy.