BluePlanet 18-19

The first conference BLUE PLANET Berlin Water Dialogues: Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Smart Cities in October 2018 focused on change processes and sustainable adaption concepts for urban spaces worldwide on their way to become “water smart”. How can water management become part of urban change processes and what opportunities are offered for achieving the UN sustainability goals of the Agenda 2030 (in particular SDG 6 and SDG 11)? Proven experts from business, research, politics and non-governmental organisations presented their concepts in the morning and discussed with the audience in the afternoon during a “Worldcafé”. The developed suggestions and results formed the thematical basis for the next BLUE PLANET conference in 2019.

Almost 200 representatives from the private and public sectors, academia, and non-governmental organizations came together in April 2019 for the BLUE PLANET Berlin Water Dialogues to discuss the potential of combined natural and engineered systems in water management. The conference was hosted in cooperation with the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project AquaNES which demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of combined natural and engineered systems for water treatment systems (cNES).

During the BLUE PLANET Berlin Water Dialogues, AquaNES presented the innovations that emerged from the collaboration of utilities, industry and academia. Various formats such as workshops, a project gallery, and a panel discussion, allowed for a multi-faceted exchange on today’s water management challenges.