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 Box 6.4  Berlin uses Augmented Reality to foster citizen engagement in urban groundwater management.

 Since 2000, Germany has registered nine of its ten warmest years on record. This is considered an unusual accumulation of record years of high temperatures (Helmholtz-Klima-Initiative, 2020). In 2019, the neighbour states of Berlin and Brandenburg were ranked the two warmest German Länder (Berlin.de, 2020). Further, according to scenarios informing its climate adaptation programme, the city of Berlin expects to have Mediterranean climate by year 2100; similar to that of modern day Toulouse (Reusswig et al., 2016). In this context, prospects of decreased precipitation and variations in seasonality are bringing water resource challenges into the agenda of the German capital, and with this, a need for increased citizen awareness of the origin and management of their water resources.

Managed aquifer recharge, using the natural underground for treatment and storage, is the main process Berlin uses for drinking water production. The efficiency of the process in this city is high, but the average drinking water consumer is unaware of it.

Since 2019, the Digital Water City project (Digital Water City, 2020) is set to a) raise public awareness of Berlin’s water resources; b) increase acceptance of policies promoting the sustainable use of urban water, and c) foster the public involvement in urban water management. To do so, the project is developing an Augmented Reality mobile application[8] providing its users with an immersive view into a “hidden part” of the water cycle. The app uses modelling of the city’s geology and hydrology to enable visualisation of groundwater resources. By making groundwater visible (Figure 6.3), the project partners intend to build the citizens’ trust in natural treatment techniques and promote the consumption of tap water over bottled alternatives. Incorporating the app into guided waterworks tours, public events and school initiatives, and installing QR codes at drinking water dispensers and well sites, the initiative aims to reach 20,000 citizens every year. The app is developed by a local SME in collaboration with the city’s water utility.

Figure 6.3  Digital Water City AR mobile application, prototype visualisations

Source: (Digital Water City, 2020)