AQUAlive DUT Call for Proposals 2024

AQUAlive – AQuatic Urban Ecosystems Alive aims to address the increasing pressures that climate change and urbanisation place on cities, particularly regarding flooding, water management, biodiversity loss and urban heat island effects. The project focuses on the development and assessment of floodable parks as innovative nature-based solutions (NbSs) that can simultaneously manage stormwater, enhance urban biodiversity and provide recreational and ecological benefits for citizens. By integrating ecological processes into urban planning, AQUAlive supports cities in transforming underused or traditional urban spaces into multifunctional green-blue infrastructures capable of adapting to climate-related challenges.

The project will investigate floodable parks at different stages of implementation—planned, retrofitted, and already operational—across six cities in Europe: Antwerp, Florence/Prato, Setúbal, Krakow, Sofia and Antalya. Using an Ecosystem Services (ES) approach, AQUAlive will evaluate the environmental, social and economic benefits of floodable parks, including flood mitigation, microclimate regulation, biodiversity enhancement and recreational value. Particular emphasis will be placed on stakeholder engagement, bringing together city authorities, experts (e.g., water utilities, planners, engineers, architects) and citizens to co-design and evaluate these solutions. This participatory approach will ensure that the solutions developed are practical, socially accepted and transferable to other cities.

AQUAlive will deliver a comprehensive framework and decision-support tools to guide cities in the planning, design and implementation of floodable parks. The project will also analyse how these systems can be connected with urban water infrastructures such as wastewater treatment plants to enable water reuse and sustainable urban water cycles. By combining environmental monitoring, ecosystem service assessment and stakeholder co-creation processes, the project will generate scientific knowledge and practical guidelines that support the broader adoption of floodable parks across Europe.

SAMPAS contributes to AQUAlive with its expertise in digital platforms, urban data integration and smart city technologies. Within the project, SAMPAS will support the development of digital tools and data-driven solutions that enable the monitoring, analysis and visualization of floodable park performance, integrating environmental and urban datasets to support evidence-based planning and decision making.

 

The project is carried out under the coordination of University of Antwerp (Belgium) and consists of 12 partners from 6 different countries: