From 1 to 3 October 2019, in composition of representatives of all project partners, we participated in the 14th Rainwater Conference - legal, economic and technical aspects in Poznań. For the first two days, we broadened our knowledge about solutions in rainwater and meltwater management in Polish and European cities. We also got acquainted with ideas in this field which were presented by speakers from various institutions and practitioners’ legal and technical guidelines in these areas as well.

The third day of the conference was dedicated to finding out with our own eyes about the effectiveness of sustainable rainwater management systems which are a model for the water sensitive urban design on the example of Berlin and its Potsdamer Platz where water from green roofs is collected by a drainage system and then drained into underground storage reservoirs. The reservoirs supply the artificial lake - Piano Lake, from which the outgoing water is filtered through a hydrophyte bed, and then flows to the Landwehrkanal. The water circulation time in the system is three-day-long and its quality is regularly monitored. It is very valuable to learn such examples, where the ecosystem attitude - supported by the need for increasing the city resistance to climate change - results in extremely successful solutions which retain water in the landscape together with its pre-treatment by using natural methods.

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