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Description
The project SMART WATER is focused on the implementation of information and educational activities in the protection of the environment in order to reduce the negative impact of human activity on water quality, which will ensure an improvement of the competences of target groups in the environmental field following sustainable regional development and water protection.
SMART WATER focuses on 4 types of activities:
1) Creating scientific as well as popularising outputs to be presented by media to a great number of beneficiaries: within the project, a set of 2 short films will be created (with total time of 45 minutes, in Czech as well as English version) “Do we have to fear water pollution we did not know about until recently?” and “Who’s in charge? or Constructed wetlands at work.” Furthermore, an educational programme for the popular science broadcast Meteor on Czech Radio channel Dvojka will be developed to explain to the widest audience the phenomenon of micropollutants, their behaviour in the environment and possibilities of their removal.
2) Creating a popularising publication for the general public entitled “Does clean water really exist? On what the laboratories are discovering in aquatic environments”.
3) Setting up 5 tutorials and lectures for the general public, public administration representatives as well as selected schools in Prague City, Central Bohemian Region, Plzeň Region, Brno and South Bohemia on the topic “approaches to reduce negative impact of human activities”.
4) Creating 3 leaflet versions that will be part of the awareness-raising campaign on the SMART WATER project and its activities and will be released in 3 stages within the yearlong project, each time in an updated version both printed and digital (in Czech as well as in English).
Summary of project results
Pollution of our waters due to human activity remains a major problem, even though the situation has been gradually improving for a long time. The main sources of pollution are currently industrial discharges, runoff from farm fields and other agricultural land and inadequate wastewater treatment. Pollutants such as heavy metals or chemicals used in agriculture then enter rivers and groundwater where they disrupt the balance of aquatic ecosystems and pose a risk to human health. Pollution therefore not only affects aquatic life, but also threatens people''s access to safe drinking water.
That is why we decided to implement an awareness-raising project called Smart Water. In this project, we focused on the implementation of information and educational activities contributing to environmental protection, especially on reducing the negative impact of human activities on water quality. We have prepared several types of activities, ranging from popular and educational ones, such as the production of short films, to a series of lectures and seminars for the professional and general public. These activities were aimed at drawing public attention to water pollution problems and presenting possible solutions. At all the events we organised within the Smart Water project, we distributed a popular educational publication prepared by us and leaflets with invitations to future seminars.
We have prepared two films with a running time of around 25 minutes, which deal with the issue of micropollutants and nature-based solutions used in the protection of water from pollution. Both films have been screened at our events, the most interesting of which is our participation in the Colours of Ostrava festival. In addition, we have appeared three times on the Czech Radio science programmes Meteor and Leonardo, reaching over 130,000 listeners. Last but not least, we organised a total of four expert seminars where scientists working in the field of water protection gave lectures. In total, over 150 people attended the seminars.
Thanks to the Smart Water project, we were able to reach a really large number of people, both lay and professional. There is no doubt that we have thus contributed to raising awareness of the problems of micropollutant water pollution. At the same time, however, we also educated the public about possible solutions to these problems and about a responsible approach to caring for surface and groundwater.