"We want to become the central contact point for the sponge city/region in Bavaria!"

The new Competence and Transfer Centre Sustainable Sponge Region (ktns) was launched at the 3rd Water Symposium on 15.11.2023. The foundation of the ktns is essentially a reaction to the results of the project organised by the WILO Foundation and the Upper Franconia Foundation co-sponsored SPORE project. Prof. Günter Müller-Czygan, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Water Systems (inwa), explains in an interview how important the topic has become and how the new competence centre can help stakeholders in administration and companies to mitigate the consequences of climate change.

Prof. Müller-Czygan, why did you decide to establish a new competence and transfer centre?

"The founding of ktns is a response to the needs of local authorities, specialised engineers, architects and urban planners. But also to the demand from companies in Upper Franconia and Bavaria, who need to adapt our cities and municipalities to climate change. The topic of water is increasingly taking centre stage, as we are feeling the effects of climate change first and foremost in the form of more frequent heavy rainfall and increasingly long periods of drought, when we run out of water."

And the sponge city concept can effectively help here...

"It provides effective solutions, yes. Rainwater is collected and retained like a sponge - e.g. in open water areas, in infiltration trenches (Channel/drainage ditch, the ed.), in underground storage tanks or on special green roofs. The rainwater then no longer flows uncontrollably over the sealed surfaces, which prevents or at least minimises flooding. After the rain event, the reservoirs are emptied, which is the equivalent of squeezing out the sponge. In summer on hot days, the stored rainwater can be used for various applications such as watering plants, saving precious drinking water."

The Hof University of Applied Sciences has been working with the concept for a long time and continues to...

"In our two projects SPORE (Smart Sponge Region Oberfranken) and in the course "The road to the sponge city - urban development in times of climate change", we have analysed and co-developed various solutions based on the sponge city concept and brought the state of the art in science and technology closer to more than 60 participants. In addition to the specialist technical content, the topic of sustainability also plays a central role, which Prof Manuela Wimmer has been working on as a sustainability expert since the beginning of our activities in the area of sponge solutions. Together, we have identified the great importance of sustainability in sponge concepts and decided to name the new competence and transfer centre "sustainable sponge city/region". In discussions with project participants and attendees, it became clear that there are currently two key things that are lacking in order for the players in the sponge city to be able to take action:

On the one hand, there are many good ideas and application examples, but they are not centrally available anywhere. The second point is probably the more important problem: the stakeholders lack the time and experience to transfer the good ideas and examples to their own use cases, as well as a suitable roadmap on how to proceed."

How can the new competence centre help here?

"We have developed suitable methods for precisely the second point at inwa and now want to make these available to stakeholders via the new competence and transfer centre. We want to become the missing central information centre on the topic of sponge cities in Bavaria and beyond in the future. And something else has become clear to us in the projects: rural areas such as Upper Franconia need their own customised solutions. That is why we are not only looking at the sponge city, but also at the sponge region in cooperation with agriculture and forestry."

How different are the requirements and expectations here?

"My colleague Wimmer and I have carried out two extensive studies on digitalisation and identified solutions and expanded these for the sponge city.

In the discussions with the stakeholders, it became clear that it is imperative to look at the measures required to adapt to climate change from different perspectives and to analyse the different needs of those involved. In doing so, it is particularly important to ensure that possible measures are harmonised with the day-to-day work of the stakeholders and that the increasing complexity of tasks is taken into account. Otherwise, the endeavours will fail. We have already experienced this phenomenon with digitalisation and it is now being repeated with the sponge city. We are now also benefiting from this experience with the sponge city. For precisely this special, holistic approach, we have developed a suitable method for analysing complexity and day-to-day work with the multi-level analysis, which we have already put through its paces in SPORE and in the training course."

What exactly does this mean?

With the multi-level analysis, we can identify existing "sponge potential" in cities and municipalities and examine how it can be ideally implemented in everyday working life. In doing so, we pay particular attention to the right combination of the measures in question with other everyday challenges and can use the holistic approach to discover potential synergies with other projects and activities. In this way, cities and municipalities can better manage the path to becoming water-sensitive cities/regions in terms of funding and personnel. The multi-level analysis is closely linked to the holistic approach of sustainability and has already proven to be very suitable and will become an important tool in the new ktns. Complexity management and sustainability are therefore two essential, closely linked pillars of ktns.

In line with the objectives of our competence centres at the university, we want to bring together the interdisciplinary expertise from our research groups and colleagues on the topic of the sponge city/sponge region and make it available to the region's stakeholders."

Prof Günter Müller-Czygan

While working on our projects and developing the course, we realised that we are currently the only scientists here at Hof University of Applied Sciences who are trying to grasp the topic of the sponge city/sponge region in all its complexity from a holistic perspective and to develop tools from this position in order to deal with it effectively and purposefully. With the competence and transfer centre, we also want to make it clear why Hof is the Bavarian competence location for water."  

What specific topics and tasks should the competence centre initially focus on?

"We are planning two main areas of work at ktns, which we call knowledge storage and transfer and counselling & coaching. On the one hand, we want to collect existing knowledge on the subject of the sponge city/sponge region in a web-based knowledge repository and make it available to the public in a readily usable form. In order for this knowledge to be put into practice, a corresponding transfer is required, which we want to ensure in the form of courses, training and lectures, intensive networking and with the help of new test fields for practical training.

With the second focus of Counselling & Coaching, we want to close a current gap that we call "Phase 0"..."

Phase 0? What is that?

"In order for the solutions and ideas from the knowledge repository to be implemented, they must first be checked for suitability with the local conditions, e.g. with the help of the multi-level analysis, and then adapted for the respective case before the municipalities and their planning offices can begin with the actual planning. The term "phase 0" comes from the fact that the work of the planning offices is divided into service phases 1 to 9. The new type of preliminary review and adaptation described above, which should take place before service phase 1, is not included in the normal service phases. We want to support and train local authorities and planning offices until they are able to carry out "Phase 0" independently."

What about the personnel line-up?

"The ktns will be organisationally affiliated to the Institute for Sustainable Water Systems (inwa). We have been endeavouring for almost six months to secure sufficient funding and have made representations to several ministries. Even though our idea of a new competence and transfer centre for a sustainable sponge city/sponge region has met with a great deal of approval, we have not yet been able to realise the desired start-up funding in full. This involved both personnel and technical equipment. However, we have been promised support for individual projects. We have also received enormous support here in the region, and I would like to express my special thanks to our District Administrator Dr Oliver Bär and our Lord Mayor Eva Döhla. We are currently in the process of securing funding for the first two positions for a period of two years with the great help of our President Prof Jürgen Lehmann and hope that we will be able to do this during the first quarter of 2024. Until then, the ongoing activities will be supervised by the inwa coordination team. Where specialist topics are involved that can be assigned to individual research projects in terms of content, our colleagues in the research groups will support us. In this way, we can build up the ktns step by step via various funding projects." 

What medium and long-term goals have you set yourself?

"We are starting by dealing with enquiries from SPORE that could not be processed further within the project. There are also already new enquiries from the symposium that we will be supporting in the coming months. Over the next 2-3 years, we will then focus on setting up various test facilities at the Hof wastewater treatment plant, which we intend to build and operate primarily as part of research projects. In addition, we also want to realise various sponge solutions at the university site in order to familiarise students with the topic on a real object and at the same time work on open questions in research. How the ktns develops will largely depend on the availability of funding, which has not become any easier as a result of the Karlsruhe judgement on the federal budget.

The topic of the sponge city/sponge region will remain with us for a very long time, as it is one of the most important packages of measures for adapting to climate change. I am therefore certain that we will be able to steadily expand the ktns and emphasise its importance in Upper Franconia and beyond."

Prof Günter Müller-Czygan

Thank you very much for this information!