The Autumn European Irrigation Association (EIA) Forum was held online on Friday 18 October 2024 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm CET.
The Forum was attended by 46 participants from Europe, Canada, the United States and Australia.
The Irrigation Forum is an event that takes place 4 times a year with the aim of covering a range of topics relevant to the irrigation sector in Europe.
This time we looked at rainwater harvesting in urban areas and how a natural resource that we have ignored for so long can become our best ally.
The forum began with an introduction by EIA President Moshi Berenstein. He began with an update on the Association's working groups: The WG Sustainable Irrigation with the promotion of the policy paper European Taxonomy. The re-launch of the WG Urban Landscape, identifying the efficiency of urban irrigation. And the WG Training & Education, working on the basic training course for landscape auditors.
He then presented the EIA 2025 Road Map Board discussions and the preparation of the Eima Exhibition (Bologna Italy - 6th - 10th November 2024), where EIA will have a stand and organize a cocktail party.
Fleur Martin, EIA Communications Officer, welcomed the new members who have recently joined the Association: Tarantini Giunti, HSTI and Otech.
We then moved on to the presentation of our guest speaker, Nicolas Griglio (Source Urbaine). In his presentation "Spring rainwater in urban areas", he pointed out that the effects of climate change are increasing (droughts, fires, floods, etc.). Since the end of the 20th century, the urban development model is no longer adapted to these meteorological changes and exacerbates the phenomena of soil sealing and urban heat islands. Today's cities lack the resilience and solutions to meet these new challenges, and Source Urbaine's solution uses existing infrastructures to collect rainwater and ensure the irrigation and maintenance of vegetation in our daily lives. In doing so, we can not only reduce the consumption of resources, but also ensure a sustainable environment in urban areas during heat waves.
The Forum ended with the Innovation & Technology session, where one of our members had the opportunity to present a new technology. Dorothea Sulzbacher from Lite soil GmbH presented: "Subsurface irrigation and water storage technologies for sustainable greening & water saving in gardening & landscaping". Subsurface irrigation systems with full-surface geotextiles have been known in Europe for about 30 years. They use significantly less water than above-ground systems because evaporation is eliminated and capillary water distribution takes place directly at the roots. Newer systems do not use full-surface geotextiles, but cut water-storage nonwovens in net form. This avoids a barrier effect and allows roots to grow unhindered through the spaces between the nets, connecting to the water storage on all sides. Dorothea Sulzbacher's presentation compared the different systems and showed ways to save water.Finally, there was a 20-minute Q&A session with many questions from the audience for both speakers before the forum closed.
Enclosed the presentation and below the link to watch the video of the event:
EIA Autumn Irrigation Forum - October 18, 2024 - EIA (irrigationeurope.eu)
