VIII edition of Stormwater Poland 2024 – innovations and solutions in rainwater management

We are pleased to invite you to participate in the eighth edition of the Stormwater Poland conference, which “Water Matters” has covered under the media patronage. The conference will be held on April 17-18 in Poznan’s Aula Artis. However, we are linking the return to the spring date of the event with a new venue. You are invited to Poznan together with Aquanet S.A. companies, which dynamically organize water management and indicate new trends. The determinant here is not only to bet on the use of rainwater, creating standards for the design and operation of blue-green infrastructure, but also to develop and implement long-term ways of financing rainwater management in the city.

The conference program presented below was inspired by this trend. It draws mainly on the joint work of Aquanet Retention and Retencjapl on standards for the design and operation of blue-green infrastructure in Poznań. For these reasons, we believe that the slogan of the Stormwater Poland 2024 conference should be: What to do with the rain?

Stormwater Poland 2024 – building awareness from the ground up

The conference’s slogan was proposed by Aquanet Retention even before World Water Day for a campaign aimed at students of Poznań elementary schools, whose main goal was to build the need for responsible and conscious collection and use of water resources. We believe that building good practices must take place not only among young people, but also among adults. We extend our invitation along with all the partners of this event, including the general partner of the conference – ACO Poland.

The first block of the conference – theoretical foundations and effective motivation

Searching for an answer to the question: what to do with this rain? We want to divide it into three thematic blocks. In the first, we will try to answer a less general question: do we care about detention, retention or rainwater utilization? This requires sorting out the nomenclature itself. We want experts to define the terms from the question posed above as strictly as possible. We also want to hear how the implementation of solutions in the areas of interest of the conference participants is given a premium when applying for new tranches of funds for climate change adaptation of urban drainage systems. How can we reliably estimate the potential for introducing these solutions in individual catchments? Of course, we will combine these discussions with examples of implementations from Poland and abroad. In conclusion of session one, we also want the conference sponsors to try to convince participants to choose their technology solutions.

The second block of the conference – water retention

In the second session of the conference, we want to answer a question that has been discussed for years: Who should take care of rainwater retention and utilization? The answer is further complicated by the increasing scale of requirements. It is no longer enough to collect rainwater, plot owners must be encouraged to manage it themselves. And if rainwater already has to be collected, for example from road catchments, it becomes a challenge for the drainage system operator to limit its discharge into receiving bodies. And at the same time, it should not be forgotten that stormwater drains are critical infrastructure, and someone must take care of their technical condition.

New challenges are often at the intersection of the competencies of different management units. We want speakers to share their experience with the division of responsibilities and financing methods. We are especially counting on the votes of water and sewage companies. We hope that after the recent elections they will stop struggling with the issue of water and sewage tariffs, catch their breath and get back to providing water and sewage comfort to city residents. Rainwater plays an important role here. In the final part of the session, we want to discuss what tools to use. This is to be served by the debate over whether drainage modeling should be exclusive or universal.

The third block of the conference – management of retained water

The third session of the conference is to focus on the question of what kind of water do we want: gray, blue or green? As you may rightly suspect, the idea is to promote “rainwater management in blue and green.” We want to inspire with examples of implementation of blue-green infrastructure solutions from Poland and abroad, but also warn that to implement blue-green infrastructure you need design knowledge, the right tools and operational and financial practices. For this reason, we want to close the conference with a debate on a perhaps controversial topic: Is there money to be made on blue-green infrastructure?

Once again, together with Aquanet S.A. and ACO Polska, we invite you to Poznan. Let’s meet at the Stormwater Poland conference and answer the seemingly simple question: what to do about the rain?