The Rural Roadwater Rescue final conference was held on 20 May 2025 at the Marie Belpaire building in Brussels and hosted by the Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij (VMM). Participants were offered the opportunity to visit the InnovA58 testing site near Eindhoven (The Netherlands) the day before.
At the InnovA58 site Rijkswaterstaat and road construction companies join forces to develop and test highway innovations. Here a Climate Adaptive Waterhub will be realized in near future. The first experiments to clean roadwater runoff at this site were presented to the visitors.
The end event in Brussels attracted a wide audience of RRR partners, policy makers and experts. Docter of Engineering Marjolein Vanoppen chaired the event. In her key note address she emphasized the urgency of the issue; “every drop counts”, she stated.
'Every drop counts' - Marjolein Vanoppen
In four focal sessions the aim of RRR and the results achieved were presented and discussed. Below you can find the four focus sessions, each including a downloadable PDF with additional information:
1. What is a Climate Adaptive Waterhub (CAWH)? Overview, strategy & upscaling
Download the PDF: "CAWH overview, strategy and upscaling"
2. Roadwater quality and legislation
Download the PDF: “Roadwater quality and legal boundaries”
3. Roadwater re-use and treatment options
Download the PDF: “Roadwater re-use and treatment options”
4. Strategic community involvement
Download the PDF: “Strategic community involvement”
All participants were invited to contribute to a poster exhibition. This resulted in new insights in addition to the RRR results, of which you’ll find more in a separate article on our website.
For a comprehensive summary of the day please read the article of the Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij (in Dutch, with a link in to the keynote in English).
An impression of the excursion to the InnovA58 field site can be found at Field trip Kloostersland, Netherlands, 21 Oct 24 | Rural_Roadwater_Rescue. The excursion on October 21st has been similar to the one organized on May 19th. At the end of the article you will find the travel guide.
Living lab InnovA58, 19th May.
RRR final conference: Roads as water suppliers