Integrated Approach to Management of Groundwater quality In functional urban Areas
Groundwater contamination is a problem that goes beyond administrative boundaries of a local public authority: there is little experience in Europe in the management of such challenges in Functional Urban Areas (FUAs). Current practices of environmental management and measures for mitigation of pollution sources are often not sufficient. Groundwater knows no administrative borders; a groundwater body covers both “city cores” and “hinterlands”, which is the basic challenge for groundwater management. AMIIGA project tackles in particular the problem of groundwater contamination originating from brownfield sites, which is common for CE’s territory. Due to the structural changes extensive brownfield areas exist both in the urban cores as well as in their hinterlands. Contamination sources located in "city core" affects the groundwater quality of "hinterlands" downstream and vice versa. It requires effective intervention at a medium (FUA) scale, neglected in existing legislation. The AMIIGA project focusing on integrated assessment, remediation and management strategies intends to build and capitalize on the results of project FOKS (CE 2007-2013). The innovative instrument “groundwater management plan” is a selective further development of the decision-support strategies described in FOKS. Key elements of this integrated management instrument are characterization, remediation and monitoring plus the management strategy and plan itself. This involves both technical and process innovation and strengthens water management capacities in the related administrative bodies among a FUA. The AMIIGA tools will be implemented in 7 pilot actions in 7 various specific CE regions; the results will be then jointly evaluated by project partnership. AMIIGA partnership provides a well-balanced combination of technical, research, management and regulatory expertise that will exchange and transfer knowledge needed to face the complex challenge of groundwater contamination.