Project Objectives

As an element of its water management activities, the local utility Stadtwerke Bühl (SWB) aims to contribute to the preservation of biological diversity and ecosystem services by introducing an environmental management system.
It is intended to consider the opportunities and risks of water extraction taking into account local challenges (e.g. soil pollution, interactions with other sectors, especially agriculture and forestry), including feedback effects between SWB’s business operations and ecosystem services concerned. BioWaWi is thus aiming to integrate dependencies and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services into the corporate strategy and day-to-day decision making of SWB with a potential subsequent transfer to other businesses in the water industry.

EIFER’s Contribution

The European Institute for Energy Research (EIfER) as coordinator is responsible for the administrative and scientific management of the project BioWaWi (WP0). EIfER is also responsible for the planning and implementation of WP1 ”Opportunities and risks of water abstraction with regard to ecosystem services via Ecosystem Services Review. EIfER supports the development and implementation of the social science components in the project, coordinated by DIALOGIK.