July 2023

SlovakGlobe research team, a leader of Work Package 4 in SMART-WaterDomain project, has developed a decision support tool that aims to study the potential behavioural change of key actors in water re-use practice and management of industries. The tool is designed to operate under various climate change scenarios and needs to be tailored to the local context and specifically describe the water-related changes that are predicted to happen in the local climates with expressing impacts on local and regional industries ´operationalisation. WP4 tool also aims to collect a list of wastewater challenges and opportunities considered as the most important by key actors of industries in project case countries.

During the stakeholders workshop organized at the University of Łódź in Poland, Natália Nováková, representing SlovakGlobe research team, moderated the discussion with a panel of local experts engaged in water reuse research. The discussion about the design, meaning as well as validation of the decision support tool brought several interesting findings. Local experts supported the assumption that many potential respondents do not have enough information to make educative decisions about water reuse in practice, such as the environmental impact of water scarcity in the future. They also pointed out that in Poland specifically, legislation is a big barrier to implementation, as it distinctly prohibits the use of wastewater in agriculture for example. The experts remarked that many stakeholders do not even consider water a scarce resource of any sort, since the prices in Poland are so low. It was suggested that the pricing of water (and other natural resources) should be designed not nationally, but rather regionally depending on the actual availability of the resource in a region. This way the price would reflect the value of the resource in that particular area, which would also push its users to realise its value regionally, which is more tangible for most people. This argument also support the tool design which highlights the importance to visualize the climate change scenarios in local context to hit the right spot.

Photo: Discussion with local experts engaged in water reuse research moderated by Natalia Nováková

(Author of pictures: Workshop participants)

SMART-WaterDomain is funded by the European Interest Group (EIG) CONCERT-Japan