Medioambiente y Sostenibilidad

SWITCH is a project for promoting an efficient use and management of water among the citizens. It is included in the 6th Framework Programme of the European Union and headed by UNESCO-IHE (Institute for Water Education)

he objective of this project is the development, application and demonstration of solutions that can contribute to the implementation of projects for a sustainable and efficient management of water in the "city of the future". SWITCH will be developed from 2006 to 2011 with a European funding of 14.75 million euros.

SWITCH Project (Managing Water for the City of the Future) groups 32 institutions of 4 continents for developing new proposals in the management of water. The demo cities are: Zaragoza, Spain; Hamburg, Germany; Birmingham, United Kingdom; Lodz, Poland; Tel-Aviv, Israel; Alexandria, Egypt; Accra, Ghana; Beijing and Chongqing, China; and Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The participation of Zaragoza focuses on the field of the management of water demand in cities.

• Fact SheetFormato PDF tamaño 1,4 Mb
• Additional information on the project

Map of participant countries

Zaragoza is renown for its different policies for water saving and also the collaboration of its citizens. As the following graphic shows and despite population increase, a gradual reduction of the water collected for city supply has been reached:

The consumption in 2008 for household uses was 106 litres by inhabitant and day, one of the lowest in Spain, country where the average consumption is 160 litres by inhabitant and day.

The objective is to reduce by 2015 the distribution of drinking water to 58 million m3 by year, and to attain a household consumption not over 90 litres per inhabitant and day.

This concern for reaching a good water management has made Zaragoza to be chosen to participate in SWITCH Project. For planning and implementing the actions, the City Council counts on the collaboration of the University of Zaragoza.

Why the ACTUR?.

The district ACTUR - Rey Fernando has been chosen since it has different positive factors for carrying out a comprehensive intervention:

• Thanks to the characteristics of its water distribution system, the target area can be divided into sectors.
• The homogeneous distribution of the public services makes easier to reach conclusions on water consumption

On 17 April 2007 the City Council of Zaragoza presented at Río Ebro Civic Centre the actions foreseen to analyse and reduce drinking water waste in the households and small gardens targeted.

Six sectors.

In order carry out a more precise and comparative survey, the intervention area was divided in 6 sectors. In every one of them, the distribution network was made independent and consumption measured to be compared with customer´s consumption and identify the causes why certain volumes of water were not measured (leaks in the distribution network and the consumer supply lines, errors of the gauge devices, consumption not measured in gardens, etc).

All these aspects will allow us to draw conclusions for the development of the division into sectors of the distribution network of the city, for controlling consumption, and for improving private and public consumption habits.

To get it, a group of actions divided in four lines are implemented:

Actions in the distribution system.

• Control in the evolution of water consumption in every single sector every hour, day and month
• Information on the evolution of the pressure in the distribution system in relation to the consumption both in the main branch and in the service points of the buildings, and monitoring of buildings with different height, different number of households and with/without rupture tanks.
• Monitoring of consumption in municipal buildings and garden areas (meters will be placed when necessary).
• Evaluation of water consumption in every target sector and of all the meters according to the activity (domestic, commercial, gardening, air-conditioning, etc). These evaluations will be made every year to check improvements in the reduction of consumption and non measured water.
• Development of proposals to value physical and commercial leaks in the municipal distribution network.
• Assessment of the evolution of consumption not measured yearly.
• Boost the use of leaking control systems in the distribution network of the ACTUR.

Actions addressed to the residents.

• Study the evolution of pressure within the buildings according to consumption and section.
• Control the need of rupture tanks in buildings, according to the minimum value of pressure at the inner distribution systems.
• Control of the evolution of the biologic quality of the water supply in rupture tanks and households.
• Assessment of the economic impact derived from the elimination of the rupture tanks.
• Research on the margin of error when reading the analogic meters in comparison with the digital meters.
• Advice to residents about the most adequate pumping water system
• Evaluation of the use of digital counters for measuring water in the households.
• Boost and evaluation of the evolution of consumption in the municipal buildings (offices, sport entities, schools and social centres), taking into account the technical and formative improvements made.

Actions in the households (domestic field).

• Distribution of forms and cards to identify the distribution of household consumption.
• Visit to 200 homes of the ACTUR previously chosen (a representative sample), to set up saving devices in taps and showers. Forms and cards will be handed out to know consumption distribution in the households.
• Training in good practices of water consumption at home for the residents of the 200 households of the ACTUR previously chosen. Forms and cards will be handed out to know consumption distribution in the households.
• Monitoring of household consumption in the 200 homes of the ACTUR previously chosen, to be used as a representative sample.
• Evolution of consumption in the 600 households studied through the three monthly readings made by the municipality.
• Evaluation of the average household consumption in the ACTUR, carrying out a comparative survey on the impact of the different consumption measures and the average consumption in every case.

Learning Alliances

A Learning Alliance is a group of organizations forming part of a given system to carry out relevant innovations to a higher scale. The most representative this alliance is, the best it will catch the organizational complexities that form the innovation system.

One of the objectives of SWITCH Project is to establish learning alliances allowing all the partners of the project to spread their knowledge, making possible a sharing of experiences in different knowledge areas, showing the good practices implemented and the solutions found to different problems related to water management in cities.

• Sectorial Board of the Local Agenda 21: Water Commission
• Education Centres

Even though until now Zaragoza has not taken part in the Learning Alliances of SWITCH Project, it has organs for the participation of the citizens such as the Sectorial Board of the Local Agenda 21 (Consejo Sectorial de la Agenda 21 Local). This organ of participation has been created by the City of Zaragoza and forms part of the Social Board of the city. More specifically, it is charged of affairs having an impact on the urban environment or affecting in any way to it.

The Board is formed by a high number of citizen entities, public administrations and institutions that represent the different social sectors. It is headed by the current councillor of Environment and Sustainability and chaired by the chief executive of Urban Planning, Housing, Architecture and Environment.

Five commissions have been created within the Board to study and debate with its members on very sensitive or relevant aspects related to different natural resources and environmental measures. The Committees are:

• Water Committee
• Committee on Environmental Taxes
• Committee on Climate Change
• Committee on Biodiversity
• Committee on Municipal By Laws.

The Water Committee was formed in 2004 for the study, discussion, analysis and drawing of proposals related to water. It is a mix committee with the participation of representatives and specialists from the City and other institutions, as well as of local stakeholders from specific sectors. The results of the works made by the Committee will be presented in the Sectorial Council of the Agenda 21 Local.

Meetings of the Water Committee:

• 13 December 2004
• 23 May 2005
• 20 November 2006
• 12 February 2007
• 17 December 2008

The Water Committee has dealt with topics as important as the drawing of a new Municipal By Law on Water, work related to the International Exposition 2008 on Water, SWITCH Project or new proposals for supplying drinking water to Zaragoza.

Dentro de las actividades del SWITCH en Zaragoza, durante el curso escolar 2007-2008 se ha desarrollado un programa específico en diversos centros educativos del área de influencia del proyecto.

El proyecto SWITCH se oferta a los centros educativos del barrio del Actur dentro del Programa Municipal de Educación Ambiental "Desde mi aula para mi ciudad", en septiembre de 2007.Los objetivos específicos de esta propuesta son:

• Proporcionar conocimientos sobre el agua (recurso, usos, ciclo).
• Informar sobre el Proyecto SWITCH.
• Ayudar a crear una conciencia crítica sobre la problemática del agua.
• Analizar la gestión y los consumos de agua del centro educativo.
• Promover entre los escolares y la comunidad educativa buenos hábitos y comportamientos respecto al agua.
• Implicar a los escolares y a la comunidad educativa en el ahorro de agua, tanto en el centro educativo como en sus casas.
• Difundir y comunicar los logros alcanzados a la población.

Ya que estos objetivos se pretenden conseguir a largo plazo, (hasta el año 2011), la propuesta para este curso escolar (2008 / 2009) adaptada a los distintos niveles educativos, se centra en los siguientes contenidos:

• Situación del agua en el mundo y en Zaragoza.
• Ciclo del agua en la ciudad.
• El agua y los ríos.
• Análisis de consumos en los centros educativos.
• Análisis de consumos en el hogar.

Los Centros educativos intervinientes firman un acta de compromiso con el Alcalde de Zaragoza. Este curso han participado 7 centros, de características diversas:

1. Escuela de Educación Infantil (niños de 0 a 3 años)
2. Centros de Educación Primaria
3. Centro de Educación Especial
4. Colegio concertado (en concreto las aulas de 16 años)
5. Centro de formación, con alumnos de Garantía Social y Ciclos Formativos

Entre todos los centros, participan unos 1400 niños y jóvenes. El programa educativo se dirige y coordina desde el Gabinete de Educación Ambiental del Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza.

Reports

• Zaragoza: taking pride in integrated water management in the city
• Water Demand Management in Zaragoza
• Systematization of the Water Supply System of Zaragoza
• Water use in Zaragoza´s Households

Tesis

• Alba Martín Varona:"An evaluation of two visualization tools for urban water management decision making: smurf and s-city vt."(Documento en formato pdf, Tamaño 7,2 Mb)
• Guillermo Penagos: "Systems Analysis of Zaragoza Urban Water System (Spain): A Preliminary Assessment of Environmental Sustainability" (Documento en formato pdf, Tamaño 2 Mb)
• María de la Paz de San Miguel Brinquis:"Simulation of the Total Urban Water Cycle in a Neighbourhood of a Spanish City and Establishment of Urban Water Sustainable Indicators"(Documento en formato pdf, Tamaño 2,2 Mb)