Working Group Urban Landscape held two meetings : on the 10th on the 31st of May

The participants were: Santiago Casanella – Hunter (leader), Xavier Botrel – Rain Bird, Lorenzo Arcangeli – Hunter, Ramunas Rederis – Sodo, Paul Van Breda – VBS Irrigation, Joao Florido– Norma Group, Rafael Diaz –Riegoturf, Damir Čizmek– In Aqua, Vojtĕch Malina – Clever Farm, Rob Hoogeven– Certified Irrigation Designs.

On the first meeting, the participants spoke about how to develop this topic, there were several different ideas and finally it was agreed to focus on 5 key points and try to develop them for the second meeting:

A.Reasons to have green areas in urban environments
B. Importance of maintenance of those areas on the long term
C. Reasons always have irrigation on those areas (no matter what kind of vegetation has been chosen)
D. New trends to make irrigation more efficient and lower the water maintenance cost keeping the areas green and healthy
E. Solutions for big cities managing many green areas in order to simplify and optimize maintenance thanks to the new technologies, centralized and integrated systems (smart cities etc).

On the second meeting were developedand these 5 points even though participants focused mostly on point C. Reasons to have green areas in urban environments, and the points developed were:

A-1 Improve quality life of people
A-2 Improve air condition
A-3 Reduce pollution
A-4 Improve ecosystem of towns
A-5 Reduce water flood after rain
A-6 Use adapted plants to the area when possible

It was agreed that the group should work on a White Paper, focus on why to use irrigation on the green areas, it may be very useful and later it may be sent to some magazine or media to highlight the importance of why to irrigate.

We commited that all of us may look at the different bullets points of the presentation done and add some more information with some references in order that we may collect them and write white document.

To join this group, please send email to : communication@irrigationeurope.eu