Slow Water

Using rainwater harvesting and preventing erosion through retention measures

Visit project page (in German)

Oberbaselbiet, Moostal Riehen and Lucerne-West (Switzerland)

2023 - ongoing

Client

Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG)

Beneficiaries

Farms in the pilot regions of Oberbaselbiet, Moostal Riehen and Lucerne-West

Key Partners

Canton of Basel-Landschaft (Ebenrain) and Canton of Lucerne (lawa & BBZN)
GWF MessSysteme AG, Lucerne
Municipalities in pilot regions of the cantons of Basel-Landschaft & Basel-Stadt: Anwil, Buckten, Känerkinden, Kilchberg, Läufelfingen, Oltingen, Rümlingen, Rünenberg, Wenslingen, Wittinsburg, Zeglingen and Riehen, as well as the canton of Lucerne: Hergiswil, Luthern, Menznau, Reiden, Romoos, Willisau.
Farmers’ organisations BVBB and LBV, BioNordwestschweiz association
University of Basel
Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG)

Climate change is increasingly leading to extreme weather conditions such as heat, drought and torrential rains. For many farms, water supply is becoming a major challenge, whether for crop production or animal farming. In addition, water is becoming increasingly scarce in municipalities during the summer months.

This is precisely where the “Slow Water” project comes in: In the pilot regions of Oberbaselbiet, Moostal Riehen and Luzern-West, farm-specific, catchment area-related retention strategies are to be developed in cooperation with municipalities and their farmers and tested for their effectiveness. With the help of hydrological and agricultural measures, the strategies strengthen water retention in agriculture in order to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events.

The idea for the ‘Slow Water’ project was born at the Swiss Water & Climate Forum 2021. seecon has been supporting the preliminary phase and implementation of the Federal Office for Agriculture’s (FOAG) resource project since 2023 and is working closely with farmers, consultants and scientific institutions to develop and implement practical solutions.

seecon supports this project by carrying out the following activities:

Explore and discover

Together with community representatives, farmers and the project partners, seecon identifies suitable catchment areas and farms to implement retention strategies. seecon also coordinates these with the scientific support of the University of Basel and other project experts to ensure a sound basis for project implementation.

Co-create and design

seecon develops comprehensive retention strategies and coordinates these with the relevant authorities to ensure that the measures are ecologically and technically sensible. In addition, seecon prepares information sheets on retention measures and calculates the impact and costs.

Empower

Seecon summarises the experiences in practical guidelines and trains advisors to competently support farmers in the implementation of retention measures.