PRESTO facilitates cooperation between the German and Belarusian Water Associations

On 15-16 October 2013 the delegation from Belarusian Water and Wastewater Association (AQUABEL) paid a visit to the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste (DWA) located in so called “Water House” in Hennef, Germany. The aim of the visit was to discuss the possibilities of future cooperation between Associations in the field of water management. Meeting was organized by the Union of the Baltic Cities and Technical University of Berlin in the framework of the PRESTO project (Project on Reduction of the Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea Today).

In the picture from left: Ruediger Heidebrecht (DWA), Matthias Barjenbruch (TUB), Oleg Gustcha (AQUABEL), Johannes Lohaus (EWA), Ilja Golovnev (Vitebsk), Agnieszka Ilola (UBC), Pekka Salminen (UBC)

“Every action involving water management requires effective cooperation between multiple actors whether at the local or international scale. DWA recognize this need and since 60 years facilitates the dialogue between water experts, research institutions and industry on national and international level. We also support our members with most efficient and cost-effective solutions in water technology. Great ideas have a very long life in the work of Association” says Mr Rüdiger Heidebrecht, Head of Department Training and International Cooperation of DWA.

The DWA is a politically and economically independent Association that works to promote research and development of water sector in Germany and on international arena. It closely cooperates with International Water Association (IWA), European Water Association (EWA) and numerous national water associations worldwide.

Visiting DWA library

Amongst a membership of approximately 14,000, there are municipalities, institutes of higher education, engineers, public authorities and companies. The number of members makes the DWA one of the largest organisation in this field in Europe, and its special expertise and competence give it a prominent place in standardization, professional training and public information in Europe. The DWA maintains a special library at its head office in Hennef with the 9,500 specialist books, 90 journals, papers from German and international institutes of higher education that are available to public. DWA is also providing a worldwide specialist advice with the build-up of national water associations and runs annually numbers of trainings and workshops for international experts. 

The Belarusian Water and Wastewater Association “AQUABEL” gathers around 30 active members consisting of water and wastewater companies. Association was established in 1992 and creates a platform for exchange of experience, information and best practices in the field of water management in Belarus. The main objective of the Association is to bring together water professionals and to promote the research and technology development through trainings, workshops and site visits.  Among others, AQUABEL contribute to the policy development and implementation of public policies in the field of water management and the protection of the water environment.

Recently the AQUABEL has been reinforced when the new executive director was nominated and strategic plan is under development. The Association aims at strengthening international cooperation and so far has been actively collaborating with Russia, Ukraine and Kazachstan. Recently, they are also interested in establishing cooperation with German Water Association and European Water Association. 

During the meeting the topics of establishing and operation of water association, standardization principle, water tariffs and charges regulation, training materials and e-learning, were discussed. Both Associations expressed their sincere will and interest in further cooperation especially in the field of preparation of trainings for wastewater experts and professionals. The representatives were invited to participate in the pilot course on modern wastewater treatment for Belarusian Universities and technology experts that is organized by the PRESTO project on 4-6.12.2013 in Minsk, Belarus.

Text: Agnieszka Ilola

CIVITAS Forum 2013 had strong representation from the Baltic Sea Region

The biggest annual event for clean and sustainable urban transport, the CIVITAS Forum Conference, took place on 30 September - 2 October in Brest, France. The conference gathered together cities from all over Europe and further, active in transforming their transport systems more sustainable. Besides  hearing best practices from forerunner cities, ranging from new kind of ICT solutions to parking strategies, the next call for CIVITAS 2020 was announced to open with significant funds in September 2014.

The CIVITAS DYN@MO stand at the CIVITAS Forum

Our region was well represented in the conference, at least by Polish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian cities, as well as UBC. This shows that there is strong and growing interest towards sustainable urban mobility issues. But why so few cities from our region have benefited from the CIVITAS funding? Participating in such a big project proposal takes some resources but being part of a CIVITAS demonstration project can truly take a city's urban mobility to the next level, so why not give it a go next time there is a chance?

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are one of the key topics in the CIVITAS Programme, and several presentations in the CIVITAS forum showed that they are here to stay. SUMPs have not necessarily gained ground in the Baltic Sea Region in the same way as in many other European countries. UBC EnvCom is supporting its member cities by being involved in many projects that encourage cities to take up sustainable urban mobility planning and develop SUMPs.

One of these projects is CIVITAS DYN@MO in which a Baltic Sea Region Competence centre for SUMPs has been established. An online platform for the centre will be published by the end of the year. The competence centre  will support cities to develop their SUMPs by providing information, support, exchange of experience and training. We hope to collect good practices from our member cities across the region and have you actively participate in our events. Stay tuned for more information!

The material from the CIVITAS Forum Conference is available on the CIVITAS website.

Text: Kirsi-Marja Lonkila

PURE actions for Baltic Sea Protection -Reducing phosphorous load from municipal waste waters

Eutrophication is the major environmental problem of the Baltic Sea caused by overload of nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus. Symptoms of eutrophication include for example reduced water transparency and massive occurrences of harmful algae. Reduction of especially phosphorus load is urgently needed to improve the state of the Baltic Sea. Project PURE* tackled eutrophication: it enhanced phosphorus removal at selected municipal wastewater treatment plants in the Baltic Sea region. PURE project has ended and it’s time to shortly summarise the activities and accomplishments.

During PURE project implementation time, three project partner wastewater treatment plants were deleted from the HELCOM hot spots list. These were Kohtla Järve in Estonia and Pomorzany and Zdroje in Szczecin, Poland. Project partners from Riga and Jurmala, Latvia and from Brest, Belarus focused their activities on investing. Currently, Riga and Brest wastewater treatment plants have a functioning chemical phosphorus removal system and Jurmala wastewater treatment plant have equipment that helps to control the biological phosphorus removal. With chemical phosphorus removal, annually over 100 tons of phosphorus is removed from the wastewaters of Riga. In addition, even up to 141 tons of phosphorus can be precipitated from the untreated wastewater in Brest with the current equipment.

In general, municipal sludge was very interesting topic. Both technical details as well as legislative issues of disposal were vividly discussed. After the project, it seems that municipal sludge continues to be a hot topic all around the Baltic Sea. It seems that wastewater treatment plants can be old or new, but challenges occur anyway. One of the PURE project results that we are very proud of is the Book of "Good Practices in Sludge Management". It presents technical solutions used in municipal wastewater sludge handling including disposal processes. The book compares the results achievable by application of different techniques, explores relevant emerging technologies and legal limitations for the further sewage sludge use.

One of the PURE projects’ outputs is a new benchmarking service for municipalities and water companies. Service is called PURE Benchmark online database and it contains wastewater treatment information from 30 municipalities and 3100 wastewater treatment plants around the Baltic Sea region. The user-friendly and practical online tool was developed by local users for practical needs like reporting and anonymous benchmarking. The database monitors also the level of wastewater treatment and technology used in the region.

Project organised six events that gathered 246 individual experts together to exchange information and to discuss about advanced wastewater treatment in the Baltic Sea Region. Among event participants, 88 were personnel from different water utilities. On-line training materials concluding the topics of the PURE project events are available for the public. Materials among other things include information about municipal sludge handling, investments in enhanced phosphorous removal in municipal wastewater treatment plants and eutrophication process of the Baltic Sea.

In addition to the events, PURE communicated the best available practices of modern wastewater treatment and sludge management by disseminating project Newsletters, Book of Good practices on Sludge management and other publications to 248 different expert organisations. Main target audience was water utilities. National and international associations and networks, authorities and other organisations like financial institutions, private companies and foundations, media and universities were also contacted.

After the project has finished it is easy to say that we have been able to make a difference. On a policy level, PURE projects’ steering group had an opportunity to participate in reformulation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. It was possible to underline the important role of the of municipal wastewater treatment plants when tangible actions against eutrophication are demanded. In addition HELCOM is currently considering new guidelines for municipal sludge treatment. Many of the people and organisations that we worked with during the past four years have been able to increase their knowledge about the many possibilities of modern wastewater treatment.  Currently, important work for better future continues as partners signed the statement: Next steps of PURE partners to promote advanced phosphorus removal and sustainable sludge management in the Baltic Sea region. Now it is your turn to give your input.

*Project on Urban Reduction of Eutrophication PURE (co-financed by the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013)

The final output from BSR InnoShip project – Pan-Baltic Manual of Best Practices on Clean Shipping and Port Operations

After three years of intensive work among reducing harmful atmospheric emissions from shipping, BSR InnoShip has come to its finalizing stage. The final seminar was arranged in Brussels on 9-10 September with two different aspects; the first day concentrated on the technical issues and solutions while the second day was dedicated to policy directions for further integration of innovations in clean shipping. A lot has been achieved, but in the other hand the work has just begun – many operators on the maritime branch are still hoping for a longer transition period when it comes to emission restrictions, although it is clear that the new sulphur regulations will step into force in 2015.

As the project results always deserve wider publicity than just presentations in the seminar, the outputs and results are collected and published in the Pan-Baltic Manual of Best Practices on Clean Shipping and Port Operations, which UBC proudly presents. The manual includes practical guidelines for local and national authorities, ship-owners and logistics managers to make it easier for each party to make decisions that comply with the regulations but also maintain their competitiveness in the field.

The Manual is divided to five chapters with different purposes. You can find facts of Baltic maritime transport and its importance for the Baltic Sea countries and tendencies of ships’ air emissions in the region, the present and upcoming regulations, best practices and recommendations for shipping on a common level but also separately for ports and cities. The whole BSR InnoShip team has participated in the development of the contents and wish that the manual will spread good news about innovative solu-tions as widely as possible.

Download the web version of the manual. 

See the presentations from the BSR InnoShip final seminar.


Text and photo: Mia Hytti, project coordinator

Gulf of Finland year with an exhibition

One of the newest projects ongoing in the UBC Environment Commission is the creation of an exhibition dedicated for the Gulf of Finland year in 2014. This is the first official trilateral project between Russia, Estonia and Finland and it is hoped that the exhibition will be as visible as possible around the Gulf of Finland.
 

The project has started with great enthusiasm from all sides. It is fascinating to see what will the end product be like, as the starting point gives great hopes that it will be something else than a poster set. You can follow the process of creating the exhibition through exhibition blog 

Lots of materials unused

The current trend is that after a project finishes, the created materials are not used nor benefitted anymore. In many cases one can’t even find them through search engines, as they are well hidden in the files of the project owners. This is also the case of materials concerning the Gulf of Finland. There are a lot of different organizations that have created quality materials that are not known well-enough. The Gulf of Finland exhibition aims to bring some of these materials into better use by combining them into the exhibition. If you know any materials concerning the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland in particular, please, let us know about it. It is our common interest not to waste resources.

The Gulf of Finland year is coordinated by the Finnish Environment Center. All the events around the year can be found from the official Gulf of Finland site. 

QUEST project celebrated its results in the final project event

During the last 2 and a half years the QUEST project has developed a Quality Management Tool to help small and medium sized cities to further develop their sustainable mobility policies with the assistance of an external expert – the QUEST auditor.  Over the course of the project 46 cities have gone through the QUEST Audit and received tailor made Action Plans. These improvement programmes are directly linked to the current status of urban mobility policies in cities and point out the areas where improvements should be made. The aim of QUEST has been to support cities in making real progress towards a more sustainable urban transport system and help them to find solutions to achieve excellence in Sustainable mobility planning!

The QUEST Final Conference, organized on the 5th of September 2013 in Budapest, Hungary, celebrated the results of the project and gathered together, for the last time, the cities and other partners that have worked together during the past two years. 

From policies into practice

 

The main aim of the conference was to present the final results of the project and discuss about the future of QUEST.  The conference addressed themes such as how to turn the plans and policies into action and how to take the leap to the next level and become a more sustainable city. Michael Koucky, the Auditor for Swedish cities stated in his presentation that QUEST Audit can also provide support and a start in the sustainable urban mobility planning processes. QUEST tool was seen useful especially for smaller cities with fewer resources to achieve improvements in sustainable mobility.

The advantage of QUEST is that it recognizes that stepwise improvements are possible at all of development of sustainable mobility policy. Therefore it is suitable for both, cities with less experience in sustainable urban mobility planning and cities advanced in this field.

Five Swedish cities Borås, Gävle, Halmstad, Mölndal and Trollhättan received their QUEST certificates. 

QUEST Academy will continue the work in future

 

To safeguard the quality of the methodology and ensure training, a QUEST Academy has been established. The overall goal of the Academy is to continue to train auditors throughout Europe, so that the method can be expanded to further countries. It also provides a platform for discussion and exchange of experiences between QUEST auditors and cities. The Academy will therefore contribute to capacity building in the field of sustainable transport throughout Europe and provide support to new auditors.

Currently, the QUEST auditor team consists of 17 auditors making the QUEST methodology available in 20 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

If you city is interested in the QUEST methodology, please contact us and we will find the right auditor for you! 

Cities that completed the QUEST process successfully, received Certificates which recognise their efforts in sustainable urban mobility planning.

More information about the project can be found at: www.quest-project.eu or you can follow us in Twitter. You can also download the QUEST brochure in English and Swedish!

Text  and photos: Maija Rusanen, Project Coordinator at UBC EnvCom

PURE finalizes its investment in Brest

This week delegation from UBC EnvCom had a chance to witness finalization of the PURE investment in Brestvodokanal. Lead partner together with the investment coordinating partner – John Nurminen Foundation, arrived to Brest to visit the site of the reconstructed and newly equipped chemical storing and dosing station at the wastewater treatment facilities.  

Chemical storing and dosing station at Brest WWTP.

The meeting parties discussed schedule of the few finalizing tasks for the forthcoming week as well as more distant future plans that will continue the fruitful work for better wastewater treatment, and congratulated each other on the good work done for the better state of the Baltic Sea. 

PURE actions in Brest had been a piloting case of the EU-funded investments of this type in Belarus.

Site of Brest WWTP.
Photos by Olena Zinchuk, UBC EnvCom.

Previously, PURE has carried out technical audits at 5 more WTTPs and successfully implemented two other investments in enchanced removal of nutrients from the wastewaters of Riga and Jurmala. PURE project is co-funded by the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013.