CITYWATER final seminar:

Protecting our CITYWATERs: why, what and how?

Time: 8-9 September 2015
Place: Tallinn Botanic Garden, Estonia

Tuesday 8 September

The two-day seminar was held at the Tallinn Botanic Garden. A bus transport was organized on behalf of the project to take participants from the center of Tallinn to the Garden.

9:30-12:00: COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP
“Veekaitse: kommunikatsioon omavalitsustelt elanikele” (“Water protection: communicaton from the municipalities to the citizens”)

9:30-12:00: STEERING GROUP MEETING
In the morning, the day started with the second communication workshop held by Tallinn University in Estonian. At the same time, the project held its last steering group meeting. Separate reports are available for the workshop and steering group meeting.

13:20-15:00 URBAN STORM WATER MANAGEMENT
After lunch, the seminar in English was opened by Päivi Kippo-Edlund from the City of Helsinki who stressed the role of local actors in water protection and the current importance of storm water issues. She also shortly presented the CITYWATER project and the Life+ funding source. The first seminar session of the day chaired by Olli-Pekka Mäki was concentrated on storm water issues and presented the water protection actions implemented within the project. Olli-Pekka Mäki from the City of Turku and Jurijs Kondratenko from Grupa 93 in the City of Riga held key note speeches on the challenges, strategies and practical implementations in cities in the Baltic Sea Region.

After this, the solution under construction in the City of Helsinki was presented by Kajsa Rosqvist, the construction plan made within the City of Turku by Anna Räisänen and the finished solution in Tallinn City by Karolin Kairo-Gasman. The audience was actively participating with several questions. The theoretical part of the session was ended with a presentation by Elisa Lähde from Aalto University on the up-coming iWater project, which has got a positive funding decision from the Central Baltic programme and which, at least for the Cities of Helsinki and Turku will be a way of continuing the work made within the CITYWATER project.

15:00-16:00 VISITING THE STORM WATER SOLUTION
The session was ended by a visit to the storm water solution constructed by Tallinn City and located just outside the Tallinn Botanic Garden conference building. Since the last visit during the steering group meeting in March, the water course had been vegetated diversely and very nicely and the water was bright and clean. The guided tour at the solution was held both in English and Estonian in parallel with coffee serving.

16:00-17:45 TOOLS FOR DECISION MAKING
The second and last session of the day was chaired by Kajsa Rosqvist from the City of Helsinki. In contrast to the first one, which was concentrated on the practical water protection implementations realized within the project, the second session presented tools in support for other local actors working with implementation. The session was started by a short introductory by the chair on the background to the tools developed in the project. The first expert speech was held by Arko Olesk from Tallinn University who presented the Communication strategy developed in the project. The second presentation was held by Eliisa Punttila from the City of Helsinki and she presented the Cost-benefit analysis and later on in the end of the session also the toolbox, which will be containing all the presented tools. The third tool represented by the Baltic Sea Challenge was presented by Salla-Maria Lauttamäki, who works as a coordinator for the initiative in Turku. Also Tina Nyfors from the City of Helsinki participated by presenting the new partners which have joined the Baltic Sea Challenge during CITYWATER project time.

18:00-20:00 EVENING RECEPTION AT THE TV TOWER
The seminar part of the day was concluded by the chair who also in the role of the Project manager of the CITYWATER project was thanking the audience for its attention and the partners for great cooperation during the past three years. The day was ended by a reception at the close by TV Tower. Here, Tallinn City welcomed all the guests and on their part thanked the other partners for the cooperation. The view from the tower at 170 m height was extraordinary and the guests seemed to have a good networking-time while enjoying the dinner.

Wednesday 9 September

9.30–11.30 Learning Café Step 1 “FROM VISIONS TO IMPLEMENTATION: CURRENT CHALLENGES AND FNDING SOURCES”
The second day of the Final seminar was reserved for planning of future cooperation and projects and providing insights on available funding sources. The chair, Mikael Sjövall from NEFCO welcomed everybody to the day and started by giving a presentation on his organization. After him the EU Life+ programme was presented by Luule Sinnisov from Neemo and the EU territorial cooperation funding by Jenni Jäänheimo from the City of Helsinki. The morning session was ended by a short introduction to the discussions of following session.

12.30-14.45 LEARNING CAFÉ STEP 2 “MATCHING NEEDS AND IDEAS WITH THE RIGHT PARTNERS AND FUNDING SOURCES”
After lunch, the participatory part started using a learning café technique. Different project ideas with idea owners are presented by flap boards in the corner of the room and the audience is divided in groups which circulate by the flaps and discuss and develop the project ideas in question. As the best possible outcome, the discussions develops to preliminary project plans.

The project ideas discussed were:
1. Private-public cooperation in sustainable storm water management – awareness raising in support for municipal planning processes (Gen Mandre, 4U People and Karolin Kairo-Gasman)

2. Cities as pioneers in Baltic Sea innovations – Baltic Sea City Accelerator (Barbara Jackson, Race for the Baltic and Salla-Maria Lauttamäki, The Baltic Sea Challenge)

3. A concept model for ideal City-University research cooperation (Kari Hyytiäinen, Univeristy of Helsinki and Eliisa Punttila, City of Helsinki)

4. A common vision for saving the Baltic Sea – communication and environmental education as tools (Lotta Ruokanen, The Baltic Sea Challenge and Esta Kaal, Tallinn University)

When all groups had circulated by every flap, the project idea owners presented conclusions in summary from the discussions. In general, the discussions realized well and new collaboration connections were revealed. At least group topic 2 on behalf of the University and City of Helsinki,as well as topic 3 on behalf of the Race for the Baltic and the Baltic Sea Challenge will be developed furhter. Considering number 1 the already funded iWater –project could function as a supportive frame. Also for number 4, Tallinn University will probably develop it further.

The day was ended at by some general words by the chair. In addition, the lead partner represented by Kajsa Rosqvist form the City of Helsinki thanked all the speakers of the day. A bus transport at 15.15 was organized to take all participants back to the center of Tallinn.