Scaling water resilience: what the EU projects webinar will examine

A short online event with a practical brief

The European Commission's Mission on Adaptation and Green Deal Projects Support Office will host Scaling Water Resilience and Circular Water Solutions from EU Projects online on 3 September 2026, from 14:00 to 15:30 CEST. The audience includes local and regional authorities, adaptation practitioners, project teams, NGOs, civil society, and private-sector organisations.

The event is designed around a familiar problem. Water managers have to prepare for droughts, floods, pollution, and competing demands while keeping services reliable. The webinar will present tools, approaches, and demonstrators from EU-funded projects that are intended to be used outside the research project that produced them.

What circular water means here

Circular water management treats water, energy, nutrients, and materials as connected flows. In practice, that can mean reusing treated water where it is safe, protecting the ecosystems that regulate water, reducing losses, or using data to manage demand and risks. The phrase does not make every reuse option suitable for every place. Treatment, regulation, public acceptance, and local hydrology still decide what can work.

The European Commission says the webinar will include examples from three project demonstrators. That focus on real cases is useful because a tool that works in a river basin, city, or farming region may need different governance, funding, and maintenance before another community can adopt it.

Questions worth taking into the session

• What problem did the demonstrator solve, and how was the baseline measured?
• Which organisation owns the data, infrastructure, and operating costs after the project ends?
• How does the solution perform during a dry year, a flood, or a pollution incident rather than average conditions?
• What permissions, skills, and funding would a local authority need to replicate it?
• How were residents, farmers, utilities, and ecosystems considered when the solution was designed?

Why this belongs on a local map

Water resilience is easier to discuss when it is tied to a catchment. A community record can show a stream, wetland, flood-prone street, irrigation area, or wastewater outfall, then preserve the date, observation, and source behind it. That does not replace hydrological monitoring or a permit. It creates a clear starting point for a conversation with the responsible authority.

The event is aligned with the objectives of the European Water Resilience Strategy, including restoring the water cycle and building a water-smart economy. The useful test after the webinar is simple: can a participant name the place, decision, evidence, and budget needed to move one idea forward?