Stands
The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) has a key role in the implementation of EU programmes helping to reach a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 under the EU Green Deal.
Pass by our stand to know more about our innovative projects focused on water resilience, highlighting cutting-edge solutions and best practices for sustainable water management. Visit us to explore groundbreaking initiatives aimed at addressing water challenges and ensuring a resilient future in the EU.
This year, a pledging tree will be placed in the exhibition area, symbolising our collective hopes for a greener future. While onsite during the Green Week or online, through social media using the hashtag #lifeawards24, all participants are invited to contribute to the LIFE Awards 24 and share their commitment to the environment. Don’t miss our LIFE Awards on 30 May, an event that recognises the most successful projects implemented under the LIFE programme, a selection of the pledges will be shared during the Awards Ceremony itself.
To progress towards a water-resilient continent, it is essential to monitor and protect our waters and use it efficiently. The Copernicus component of the EU Space programme generates terabytes of Earth observation data on a daily basis. This data is used in conjunction with specific tools to closely monitor and analyse almost every aspect of the Earth's surface, including water bodies.
Come meet us and explore these data and tools available from the Copernicus services. Test your knowledge by participating in our quiz on interesting facts about water and natural hazards, or behold real-time satellite images of your favourite locations through our Earth observation wall.
Come and visit our stand and take a closer look at the bathing water quality of your favourite beach.
The water we swim in can be affected by many factors, including storm surges, pollution, marine litter and microplastics. Pollution from shipping also affects air and water quality, and life in our seas, lakes and rivers. Thanks to EU legislation and effective implementation by Members States, the bathing water quality improved significantly over the last four decades. Today more than 95% of bathing sites meet the minimum standards set by EU legislation.
Member States monitor the quality of bathing water during the bathing season. This data is then reported to the EEA who analyses, and quality checks the data in order to assess the overall water quality for a given bathing season. This assessment is a good indication of the bathing water quality for the coming season.
- Check out the bathing water topic on EEA website
- Go directly to the map viewer of the Bathing water
- More information on the Bathing Water Directives
- See also EU Commission's Bathing Water Homepage
Check out this year’s photo exhibition featuring photos from EEA’s annual photo competition! Go to the photo competitions website for information on how to participate.
Permanent supply of safe and affordable drinking water for all, no water leaks, sound treatment of wastewater, protection against floods, resilience in times of drought and during heatwaves, and preservation of urban water ecosystems. These are crucial tasks that green cities champion to achieve water resilience.
The Commission supports cities in many ways. Two urban environment initiatives include clean and resilient water management for a safe and healthy urban space.
- The European Green Capitals and Green Leaf cities are the European frontrunners in urban sustainability: Each year, one city above 100 000 inhabitants is awarded as European Green Capital and one or two cities between 20 000 and 100 000 are European Green Leaf cities.
These cities have to perform in water quality, preservation of biodiversity and adaptation to climate change, together with other environmental and climate targets. The jury looks at how the cities are #WaterWise, improve their environment, adapt to climate change and mitigate it.
During their title year and beyond, the Green Capitals and Green Leaf winners take their civil society and business on board to raise awareness and implement more innovative actions, becoming EU flagships in the green transition.
Valencia (Spain) is the European Green Capital 2024 and Velenje (Slovenia) and Elsinore (Denmark) are the Green Leaf cities.
Will your city be the next? The call for applications will open in November for the 2027 titles! - See all award winners here.
- To sign the Green City Accord, our second urban environment initiative, is the first step to become a #WaterWise city. The Green City Accord is a commitment from mayors to make their cities greener and cleaner, improving the quality of life of their citizens and strictly implementing EU environmental law. The signatory cities commit to address water, nature and biodiversity, together with other environmental key areas (air, noise and circular economy).
More than 110 cities and more than 30 supporting organisations and have signed so far and their number is rising.
Signatory cities report to the European Commission on their environmental performance, work closely with each other in a network led by the European Commission. By this, cities can get a good overview of what needs to be improved or where they are already great!
At the 2024 Greenweek stand, you can meet with the Commission project managers and the secretariat of these initiatives to get further information and get involved.
The Interact programme is supporting and working closely with all Interreg programmes, implementing solutions for a Greener Europe through territorial cooperation, at cross-border and transnational level. Interact coordinates the Thematic Working Group for a Greener Europe. It acts as an exchange platform available to the Interreg Programmes involved in green projects during the 2021-2027 period.
The focus on water resilience for this year's Green Week is in line with one of the key specific objectives tackled by Interreg, with many projects having provided or currently developing solutions for more resilient water management.
The Interreg stand during EU Green Week 2024 will exhibit the work of the Interreg Programmes in PO2 by showcasing the integrated territorial dimension that Interreg has at its heart, with project results showing impact on the ground. Come discover the multitude of Interreg projects on water resilience and explore the Best Practices to replicate!
The United Nations (UN) stand at the EU Green Week 2024 showcases projects and approaches from several UN agencies to address the theme of water resilience.
The UN stand encourages visitors to explore various environmental issues and solutions, through interactive elements such as a quiz and engaging audio-visual material that highlight mainly some of the successful projects implemented in partnership with the EU.
Representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) , the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), will be present to engage with visitors.
In visual representations, oceans are often shown as blue, empty fields or voids. Ocean Connections aims to instil these unseen spaces with stories and movement, to discover a kinship to life in the oceans.
The project investigates processes within ecosystems which are influenced by ocean flows. Whilst focusing specifically on the Oslofjord environment in Norway, the title Ocean Connections points to the interconnectedness of all oceans. We cannot really tell where the Oslofjord ends, as it runs into Skagerrak and joins the North Sea which then flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Employing a combined means of storytelling, the work aims for an immersive, circular experience of biodiversity and ecological connections on a global scale.
The resulting artwork is a two-channel video installation, formulated and constructed from an experimental scientific and artistic dialogue and mode of collaboration, combining mathematical modelling based on Lagrangian descriptors, scientific data about ocean movements and ecological conditions, and artistic storytelling through animation and visuality.
Specter[al]s of Nature is a work informed by scientific earth observation research on surface water. It is a product of speculative cartography that takes inspiration from the maps in the Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics, expanding them into 3D objects, which represent water creatures.
Each sculpture represents a specific water body – the Aral Sea, Balbina dam, Pantanal wetland and Brahmaputra River. The history of how these water bodies have changed, morphed and adapted throughout forty years of earth observation is visible in the height of the sculpture, providing a thought-provoking representation of the evolving landscape.
Through the creative amalgamation of composite imagery derived from satellite technology, the projection presents a vivid depiction of a dynamic, living cartography that encompasses multiple ways of seeing, both human and non-human.
This work’s intention is to stimulate critical thinking regarding our limited understanding of time and space, challenging the existing disconnect with nature and inspiring us to reimagine ways to map the world within the evolving tapestry of existence.
EEA Photo Competition
The animals being cleaned and rested in the spa water and the owners resting in peace. 
Summer in the countryside 
Freediving in a underwater cave with the firsts sunbeams. 
Storm 
A group of athletes at the start of a triathlon during the swimming test 
Small girl enjoying jumping into deep water. 
Supermacro shot of a damselfly covered by morning dew. 
The picture shows people admiring the power of a storm. 
The photo shows the moment when common kingfisher (alcedo atthis) catches fish underwater! The whole action last less than a second and it required a few months of persistence. 
This photograph shows the blue tit looking through the hole in the block of ice. I took this picture in my garden in Bydgoszcz (central Poland), during winter. I observed many times, that curious birds searched for the food and water not only in the birdf 
Storm coming from the sea 
There is a danger of global warming in Van Lake in recent years. In the lake, where a significant amount of water was lost and the water level dropped to one meter, there was a horizontal recession of more than 200 meters in the coastal areas, while the f 
The quiet after the storm 
During the period of the courting the Great crested grebes are used to exchange gifts, generally seaweeds. In this photo a grebe donates a piece of plastic mistaken for a succulent seaweed 
This encounter in the Indian Ocean is incredible. The humpback whale is an extraordinary animal. To meet it in the water, in its universe, is magical. The water reduces the sounds, and we only hear its song, rocked by the movement of the waves 
A construction vessel working at Gwynt-Y-Mor windfarm, as a turbine nears completion in the background. 
One of the first ways to obtain our food independence in an inhospitable world. Nowadays the things are little bit changed but the importance of water may be the same. 
Sea arteries, with blue blood to feed the town, work for fishers. Sea arteries in a blue world. 
In December 2020 the Panaro River broke its banks due to incessant bad weather, thus flooding the entire town of Nonantola, a small town in the province of Modena (Italy), forcing the population to abandon their homes. 
Fisherman's port or simply Chengeneto - this is a small village 15 km south of Burgas, preserving fishing traditions to this day. Here you can watch demonstrations of weaving nets, entanglement of ropes and sea knots, tasting of traditional foods and pres 
The song of the sea 
Fish ponds in a lake.The calmness of the fisherman going to feed the fish. A peaceful view for the audience 
Happy puddle 
if there is water there is life 
The autumn fishing in ponds in South Bohemia is a demonstration of the skill of the fisherman. 
A large electric central around in the rice fields near Trino Vercellese also known for the presence of one of the few Italian nuclear power plants. Modern man can no longer live without both. 
The photo shows the ArcelorMittal Poland/ Ironworks Katowice and his sedimentation tank seen from drone. 
When you and your friend decide to go shoot some shots by the sea, only to find it being colder than Arctic. -15 degrees celcius and 15m/s wind made the trip awesome. 
Water - the source of life
