At the opening ceremony of the International Water Reuse Conference 2019 recently held in Berlin, Stefan Tidow, Permanent Secretary of the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, and Jörg Simon, Chairman of the Board of Berliner Wasserbetriebe, have a signed the corresponding document in the presence of IWA Executive Director Prof. Kalanithy Vairavamoorthy.
To date, prominent cities such as Amsterdam, Brisbane and Copenhagen, among others, have made the decision to apply these management rules, which have been developed by international experts in water management.
In his interview with Dr. Bodo Weigert, Stefan Tidow mentioned that even though Berlin is on the right path to sustainably managing its water resources, there is still much that needs to be done.
"(…) Unlike other cities, which use long-distance pipelines to transport water into the city from the surrounding region, Berlin supplies itself with its own drinking water from within the city area. In addition to the many benefits which this offers, this also means that the system bears a great deal of responsibility when it comes to ensuring its future and guaranteeing sustainable operation. This is why we also believe that it is important to develop a more proactive approach to resource management. We have to move away from decisions which are made based on current conditions and which then have to be reversed after only a few years, for example closing waterworks (…)".
Read the whole article here and learn more about the measures adopted and what the next steps are.