Brussels, 12/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Union and a consortium of 32 world-wide partners led by UNESCO is launching the SWITCH project to promote efficient water use and integrated water management to address water-related Global Change pressures, including population growth, urbanisation and climate change, says a press release from UNESCO-IHE (Institute for Water Education). The press release says that the project, which has a budget of 22 million euro mainly from the European Union, will develop scientific, technological and socio-economic solutions to deal with challenges related to the quantity and quality of water, ineffective sanitation systems, poor government and costly water management. Richard Meganck, director of UNESCO-IHE, says, “The City of the Future depends on the success of this project”.
Among those taking part there are many organisations and institutes from the EU (especially British, German and Dutch), and also from Switzerland, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, China, Ghana, Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Semi full-scale testing of new solutions will be carried out in nine Demonstration Cities - Accra, Alexandria, Belo Horizonte, Beijing, Birmingham, Hamburg, Lodz, Saragossa and Tel Aviv - says the press release.