Water Knows No Borders. Greece & Albania share CB river basins; therefore water resources management & supply aspects are common challenges that should be jointly tackled. In the meantime existing financial/human investments are not sufficient to ensure proper operation & maintenance of the water supply (WS) infrastructure, while the capacity of water utilities to manage basic services in delivering safe drinking water & treating waste water is weak. Thus, SaveSafeWater overall objective is to increase the capacity of CB infrastructure in water management, through their rehabilitation, drinking water quality monitoring & reduction of NRW, throughout the whole WS chain (from the water abstraction points back to the environment).
SaveSafeWater not only safeguards water resources quality & quantity from natural & human pressures, but also assures water consumers safety & health as well as their quality of life, in compliance with EU & national legislation.
The expected change is the increase of water operators’ capacity in delivering safe drinking water &the management of waste water treatment. Smart Growth will be enhanced by utilizing ICT, Sustainable Growth by supporting construction of water infrastructure & promoting environmental protection, adaptation to Climate Change (CC) & risk prevention, sustainable use of natural resources. Inclusive Growth will be enhanced by assuring public safety & health.
Main outputs will be joint innovative methodologies & tools (water use efficiency & quality monitoring) used to tackle drinking water management problems, considering human & natural pressures including CC (joint CC, water audit & quality report, CB water resources vulnerability assessment report).They will be tested in 4 pilot areas (Ioannina & Korce/inland, Igoumenitsa/coastal, Kefallonia/island) & finally a joint policy recommendation paper will highlight sustainability of results & lessons learnt to the whole CB area.
SaveSafeWater is expected to assist in tackling crucial common WS management problems (targets set by the River Basin Management Plans) & achieve economic & tourist development (improved water quality & adequate quantity) in the programme area.
The added value is improved management of water resources used for drinking purposes, through their efficient use (reduced NRW) & water quality assurance (water & energy resources efficient use; reduced carbon & water footprint). Our approach is a synergy of water operators, WFD implementation strategy & CC vulnerability, promoting an integrated solution. Public authorities & water consumers (local citizens & visitors) are expected to benefit (growth of “blue” behaviour).
The activities are jointly developed by all PBs verifying the need for a joint approach (CB river basins). The integrated tools are original & innovative as till now only fragmentary ones are used to improve drinking water management. They will function as reference processes applied in EU level (disseminated through jointly developed communication & sustainability Plans).
