Aspects of Urban Water Cycle Services UWCS are divided into eight broad categories: 1. water security, 2. water quality, 3. drinking water, 4. sanitation, 5. Infrastructures, 6. climate resilience, 7. biodiversity and 8. attractiveness and governance A City Blueprint looks at all of them.

1. EIP Water Action Group
CITY BLUEPRINTS
Improving Implementation Capacities of Cities
and Regions by sharing best practices on
Urban Water Cycle Services
21 November 2013
EU Parliament, Brussels

2. Introduction: Improving the capability of cities and regions by
sharing best practices in urban water cycle services
City Blueprints is a
baseline assessment of
the sustainability of water
management in a city (or
other predominantly
urban region).
The result allows a city to
quickly understand how
much it progresses in
sustainable water
management and to
compare its situation with
other local administrations
around the World.
CITY BLUEPRINTS

3. Created by Kees van Leeuwen at the KWR Watercycle Research Institute, the
City Blueprint covers 24 aspects of UWCS divided into eight broad categories:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
water security
water quality
drinking water
Sanitation
Infrastructures
climate resilience
biodiversity and
attractiveness and governance
There are no direct costs involved. On average, answering the questionnaire
signifies 1-2 days work by a municipal technician. The questionnaire is
supervised by an independent technical expert who analyses the answers,
generates the webgraph and prepares a report.

4. Process and Approach
Participation in City Blueprint represents no political commitment by the local
authority in question.
However, the concept has been created to encourage all participants to engage
local stakeholders in a long-term vision, involve citizens in the implementation of
financially - practical measures and seek the participation of local SME’s etc.
This helps converting the City Blueprint project into a catalyst of communication,
cooperation and economic development between cities, towns and villages, each
with their own bureaucratic and geographical idiosyncrasies.
CITY BLUEPRINTS

5. The challenge: to think globally, and act locally – Next steps
1. The participating cities must be prepared to adopt a bottom-up approach
in order to ensure public awareness. This will result in local consensus and
political continuity.
2. A city blueprint website will be established so that cities will be able to
communicate and see that their work is publically recognised. This process
of recognition will be reinforced by the creation of the city blueprint atlas
and the blue city award.
3. Blue city labelling whereby good practice is publicized will be implemented
and thus facilitate the incorporation of local business and technology into
the process
4. The principal condition in order to obtain the expected results is continuity
once the city has received its webgraph and the conviction of both, the
action group stakeholders and participating cities. This will only be
achieved by providing early practical and, above all, visual results which
will benefit both the City Blueprint AG and the local communities it is
working with.
CITY BLUEPRINTS

6. PARTNERS OF CITY BLUEPRINTS
NETWERC H2O (EU) – KWR WATER CYCLE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
(THE NETHERLANDS) – FUNDACIÓ CTM CENTRE TECNOLOGIC
(SPAIN) - ADVENTECH (PORTUGAL) – COPERNICUS INSTITUTE
OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (UNIVERSITY OF UTRECHT) –
SIEMENS (THE NETHERLANDS) – ERRIN (EU) – RED ARAGON 7
PM (SPAIN) – ZINNAE (SPAIN) – AMGA (ITALY) – PARAGON
EUROPE (MALTA) – USBMA (MOROCCO) – REGIONE PUGLIA
(ITALY) – ACQUEDOTTO PUGLIESE (ITALY) – AUTORITA’ IDRICA
PUGLIESE (ITALY) – DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY (UNITED
KINGDOM) –WITTEVEEN EN BOS (THE NETHERLANDS) –
DELTARES (THE NETHERLANDS) – ENEA (ITALY) – REDINN
(ITALY) - LEITAT (SPAIN) – DEMOWARE CONSORTIUM (EU) –
WORLD BANK (THE USA) – REGIONE TOSCANA (ITALY) –
MINISTRY OF ENERGY AND WATER (STATE OF ISRAEL) – EASTON
WATER
CONSULTING
(BELGIUM)
STRANE
INNOVATION
(FRANCE)
Find out more on
www.eip-water.eu/working-groups/city-blueprints-improvingimplementation-capacities-cities-and-regions