The project aims to examine the potential of water management practices for socio-economic development along water corridors, which provide link from source to the sea. This is to be achieved by examining the practices of five already approved projects, namely MOPARK, NoLimp, TEN3, PURE and WCI II. In this way it is hoped contribute to the development of future proposals for the new period that would also meet the targets laid down in the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas and a number of EU directives in terms of employment opportunities, investments needed for the implementation of these directives, ICZM and water related issues.

The focus of this project is on the potential of sustainable water management to contribute to sound socio-economic development along the water corridors (river, brooks and canals) that connect wetlands, cities and the North Sea - the waterline that runs from source to sea. The central aim is to strenghten the role of socio-economic development in enhancing sustainable water management in "waterline" areas, by drawing upon the knowledge and experience of five existing, innovative INTERREG North Sea Programme projects (namely, NoLimp, MoPark, PURE, Watercity International II and TEN 3).

Expected Outcomes

As the emphasis lies on the socio-economic spin-off of the relationship between job development and projects on water management, the expected outcomes have to be found to indicate the effects of this project, like the raised percentage of employment in the cultural and national environments or the number of new enterprises in these areas.

Activities

The project starts off with a kick off meeting, where the main question will be how to position the knowledge gathered in the framework that is determined by the water framework directive, the nitrate directive and the groundwater directive (and also in relation to the new transnational programmes 2007 - 2013). There will be a number of regional workshops and the final report on the final transnational workshop will be used as input for the regional workshops in the next phase of the project. The next phase is focusing on the analysis of knowledge and / or experience within the view of the Lisbon Agenda. Each regional workshop will produce a report on its findings, which will be used as input for the following transnational workshop. The report on this transnational workshop will be used as input for the regional workshop in the next phase of the project. The final phase of the project concentrates on determining the potential projects and project fields which would benefit from transnational co-operation with the knowledge from the earlier phases and which projects yield also (socio-)economic benefits. The report on this transnational workshop will be used as input for the international seminar and for the final report. At the international seminar, the results of the Waterline Economy will be presented to a broad public.

Reported Outcomes

The aim of the Water Economy project is to intensify the incorporation of the socio-economic advantages of sound water management, building on the knowledge and expertise gained during the course of five existing InterregIIIB projects in the North Sea Region. The project strengthens existing networks and extends these to include relevant partners within a member state, addressing water management; includes economical issues and opportunities as a matter-of-course when approaching water management projects. So far the project carried out a number of regional projects that focussed on analysis of socio-economic experience amongst existing partnerships. Gathered information and techniques were summarized during regional seminars. This was used as input in the transnational seminar. In addition to regional seminars, Economic Expert Meeting was carried out in UK where presentations of economic experts with different methods and techniques. After this a workshop was organized to research the best available and usable methods. The result was a draft Benefit Assessment Paper that will be used in September seminar. Waterline Economy seminar in Belgium discussed the results of the analysis of socio-economic experience in different countries. In addition, discussions analyzed the themes that could profit from the transnational cooperation. As a consequence of the discussions, ideas for Interreg IVB projects were identified.