📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 01/07/2023
End Date: 30/09/2028
Total Eligible Budget: 4,999,594 €
EU Contribution: 2,999,757 €
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
LIFE WATERSOURCE demonstrates the unique potential of a nature-based solution for drinking water production from surface water in Lake IJsselmeer to counter the emerging risk of surface water salination due to climate change, whilst boosting the lake’s ecology, which is part of Natura 2000. This project demonstrates: 1) Securing the source for drinking water, regardless of present and future water stress due to climate change, whilst adding essential ecotopes. 2) A nature-based solution that can compete economically with technological alternatives to secure drinking water production—most notably, desalination and the importation of water from other sources. 3) That the LIFE WATERSOURCE solution is more sustainable, and that securing drinking water availability can even substantially benefit the wider environment. We want to break away from endlessly searching for more technologically advanced purification methods, which are chemical- and energy-intensive, create chemically polluted waste streams, and/or add further to climate change with a high CO2 footprint. The project includes water intake from Lake IJsselmeer via a purifying ecotope, including a meandering helophyte filter and bank filtration, in combination with reservoirs that are constructed to meet interrupted intake when the water quality is too poor due to low river discharge to the lake.
