URWAN – Urban Regenerative Water Avant-garde(N) is a groundbreaking initiative, funded by the Interreg Euro-Med Programme, tackling the pressing challenges of water scarcity and drought in Mediterranean regions amidst the escalating impacts of climate change. URWAN will be at the forefront of integrating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) into urban regeneration efforts and emphasizing water management and climate adaptation for resilient and sustainable urban development.

Launched on January 1st, 2024 the project gathered from 15 to 18 April, in the city of Ragusa in Sicilia, to celebrate its second project meeting, with all nine partners spanning seven countries, and the first co-creation workshop. The partnership had the opportunity to engage in enriching discussions and collaborative sessions aimed at advancing the common understanding of the opportunities stemming from the integration of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) into urban regeneration efforts.

The meeting included the technical visit to the University of Catania, where innovative green roof solutions were presented and discussed as well as at the Wall2Water initiative in Comune di Ferla, where Iridra provided a thorough technical explanation of how the green wall works, focusing on weaknesses and strengths of this kind of innovative water treatment and recovery system.

MedCities is leading the URWAN work on amplifying the dissemination of the results and transferring and will be responsible for producing a NbS enabler pack open to all Mediterranean local authorities as part of the project. Also, it will accompany its members benefiting from the project, namely the city of Larnaka, Sarajevo, and Roma.

During the three days of the meeting, the partners engaged in a detailed discussion of the project activities, with a focus on the technical solutions that will be put in place in the six beneficiary territories, including three NbS pilot installations. Furthermore, the first co-creation workshop took place among the partners to identify their priorities in terms of urban climate change-related challenges. The co-design workshop was structured and coordinated by the partner ZRS Bistra Ptuj, and included teamwork sessions aimed at incorporating Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) into initiatives for greening urban areas. This session will contribute to the identification of priorities for the technical solutions to include in the URWAN catalog. Lastly, the partnership held a steering committee meeting to review the management and administrative aspects of the project and plan its upcoming activities.