Brugge
Blue4Green - Blue4Green
About the project
Bruges is a world heritage city where water has always played an important role. The inner city canals, known as reien, not only shaped the city centre and provided its water supplies in medieval times, but they are also vital to make the inner city climate change resilient today. Bruges needs to adopt a holistic and preventative approach in which a sustainable water management system supports the city’s greening policy.
The goal of Blue4Green is to make the reien sustainable, in terms of water quantity and quality, to provide for the increasing water demands of urban greenery. The reien form a closed system with only one inlet and one outlet.
This project automates the control system and develops a smart water balance model to allow for preventative measures to be taken affecting water supply and buffering. To this end, part of the underground historic water network is to be reconnected to the reien.
The project also involves ensuring high water quality, creating a reliable water supply for the maintenance of existing and new greenery. This also benefits biodiversity and water recreation.
In order to allow for data-driven decisions, all these actions are linked to a new policy dashboard. This Blue4Green digital twin is designed to integrate all existing green-blue data, complemented with new missing data in order to analyse water availability and quality, and green stress at local level. This extensive dashboard will steer policy decisions and help identify solutions through co-creation with stakeholders and citizens.
Challenges
Flanders is extremely vulnerable to water risks: drought, floods, and above all water stress: Belgium has Europe’s third highest ratio of water demand to available renewable surface and groundwater supplies (World Resources Institute, 2023). For the city of Bruges, pursuing a successful greening policy means putting immense pressure on available water supplies. The city faces diverse challenges regarding the maintenance and further expansion of its green-blue network.
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Limited space in the historic centre complicates the installation of new facilities to increase water buffer capacity. This means that in periods of water shortage, the city must tap into other available water sources.
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The quality of the water in the reien is unstable. This not only threatens fauna and flora, but also limits recreational use, such as swimming and other sports events. A blue-green algae problem puts additional pressure on water quality.
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The city lacks real-time insights into water availability from different water sources, overflows, water levels in the reien, water quality and green stress.
Proposed solutions
The reien as a closed water system is a privileged location and unique testing ground for new solutions on green-blue management. In order to effectively connect water to the green spaces in the city and create a balanced model, Bruges has identified the need to invest in three distinct yet connected solutions.
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A Blue4Green digital twin to gain better insights into water availability and the water needs of green infrastructure.
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An automated steering system for the reien, connecting it to a smart water balance model, in order to increase water buffer capacity in the inner city.
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The testing of two types of nature-based solutions.
Milestones
The dashboard stores real-time data from sensors and makes it accessible
Installation of new filtering methods in the city’s inner canals
A model with triggers and actions to increase the inner canals’ water buffer capacity
To understand the water system and allow for strategic green-blue management decisions
This pilot tests the re-use and buffer capacity of the historic water system