Project duration: 1st January 2024 – 30th September 2026 (33 months)
Programme: Interreg Euro-MED Programme
Lead Partner: Regional Association of Italian Towns in Lazio – ANCI Lazio (Italy)

Partner countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta and Bosnia-Herzegovina

Total budget: € 2 836 118 – Interreg Funds: € 2 268 894.40

The project, approved within the framework of the Interreg Euro-MED program and under the mission of Promoting green living areas, addresses two primary challenges:

1. Necessity to increase the green urban areas to mitigate the effect of the ongoing climate changes;
2. Optimize the use of water for irrigation purposes.

Mediterranean areas face severe drought and water scarcity, becoming major issues and concrete societal challenges. Our living areas are highly vulnerable to the effect of climate change, experiencing more and more extreme events. At the same time, decision-makers plan investments in greening the cities without a long-term strategy on resource availability, impact, and related opportunities, while the transition towards a greener environment requires an integrated vision, harmonised knowledge and stakeholders’ empowerment.

In particular there is a lack of knowledge on the use of the existing nature-based solutions in order to support a rational use of water while transforming our cities in greener cities.

URWAN addresses the critical link between urban regeneration and resources, exploiting nature-based solutions’ role in integrating water management and climate change adaptation.

The project involves 9 partners from 7 MED countries, who will jointly implement activities affecting the decision-making process to multiply the impacts of public funds.

The partnership capitalises on innovative participatory approaches and existing NBSs while demonstrating the importance of making these solutions multifunctional.

The URWAN Catalogue for final users harmonises knowledge of NBSs using a creative style able to reach all the local players and support the co-design of the proper NBSs to face the challenges.

Further, URWAN transforms 3 public buildings into “water producers”, promoting green urban surfaces as a place-based transformative potential by implementing transnational experimental interventions. The project involves decision-makers and stakeholders in 6 cities to co-design multifunctional NBSs in a climate change scenario and deliver Road Maps towards adaptation.

Thanks to the Amplification Strategy and the nature-based solutions Enabler Pack, the partners demonstrate and transfer the joint solutions and mainstream NBSs.

The avant-garde idea is to inspire decision-makers to valorise NBSs as resources for generating urban sustainability, beauty, and social inclusion, i.e., "needs behind functionality", as stated in the New European Bauhaus Initiative

Project website: https://urwan.interreg-euro-med.eu

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This project is supported by the Interreg Euro-MED Programme with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund