For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020This initiative is funded by the European Commission through DG EuropeAid.
For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020For a cleaner Mediterranean by the year 2020The Mediterranean environment is one of the richest and at the same time most vulnerable in the world. A staggering 80% of its pollution comes from land-based sources. Rapid urbanisation together with increasing and unsustainable coastal tourism development is causing significant environmental and health problems – more than half the major urban areas do not have wastewater treatment plants and most of the wastewater they produce is discharged into the sea.
A series of three workshops were organized by the ENPI funded H2020 CB/MEP in partnership with UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, the Netherlands (September-October 2010). Focusing on Advances in Urban Wastewater Management in Coastal Areas, the specific training workshops support the Horizon 2020 initiative and its objective to de-pollute the Mediterranean Sea through developing and strengthening the capacities of professionals dealing with the management of wastewater in Mediterranean countries.
In November 2005, at the summit to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean process, the partners committed to: "endorse a feasible timetable to de-pollute the Mediterranean Sea by 2020, while providing appropriate financial resources and technical support to implement it, using the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development and exploring possible areas for co-operation in this regard with UNEP".
The H2020 Pollution Reduction Sub Group is one of the three sub-groups set up by the Horizon 2020 Steering Group. Chaired by the UfM Secretariat and the European Investment Bank (EIB), its task is the identification and development of investment projects to reduce the most significant sources of pollution in the Mediterranean.
