WaterCoG - Water Co-Governance for sustainable ecosystems.

WaterCoG is collaborative project between a number of partners and stakeholders from Sweden, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK to understand the extent to which effective stakeholder and community participation in water management (co-governance) can ensure a sustainable and long-term approach management of ecosystems of the North Sea Region (NSR) by improving the implementation of key environmental objectives, such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD). https://northsearegion.eu/watercog/

Name of grant program

INTERREG North Sea Region (NSR) is a transnational program. The program focuses on the cooperation of different countries located along the North Sea coast. The overall objective of the program is to stimulate innovation and sustainable economic growth in the North Sea region. Sharing and bringing together expertise, ideas and strategies from different countries leads to more innovative and smarter solutions to shared problems. The Program is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) budget for INTERREG NSR 2014-2020 is €167 million.

Project objectives

WaterCoG aims to achieve more sustainable and longer-term approaches to ecosystem management in the North Sea Region (NSR) through effective participation of water management authorities and stakeholders (co-governance) to improve the implementation of key environmental objectives such as the Water Framework Directive (WFD) at the local level.

Contribution from HHNK

Concrete deliverables

  • On Texel, farmers themselves measure the salinity levels in their ditches and archive this in a database to learn and jointly arrive at solutions
  • Together with the municipalities, climate stress tests are carried out to arrive at climate-adaptive measures from there
  • A Climate Atlas https://hhnk.klimaatatlas.net/
  • Training program in cooperation with Hanze University of Applied Sciences
  • Database of process and physical tools to achieve climate-resilient measures in the urban area

Location

HHNK's activities take place at all municipalities in the management area.

Partners

WaterCoG has nine partners from five different member states (UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands):

  • The River Trust (UK)
  • Seges (DK)
  • Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SE).
  • Oldenburg-Ostfriesische Wasserverband (DL).
  • Local Government Denmark (DK)
  • Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen (NL)
  • Municipality of Aalborg (DK)
  • The Skagerrak & Kattegatt Water District Authority (SE)

Budget

The total cost of the activities within this Interreg cooperation project amounts to € 3,380,550. The share in costs for HHNK amounts to € 430,000. Of this, Europe (Interreg) is subsidizing € 215,000 and the Province of North Holland € 64,500.

Duration of the project

The project began on Jan. 1, 2016, and is expected to run through Oct. 31, 2019.

Want to know more?

Contact the Water Board's Subsidy Coordination Team via the contact form or by calling 072 582 8282.