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Global Grant Proposal Form for Project G-3629 Last updated by Severino Luigi Arturo <luigiseverino4@gmail.com> on 13-Feb-25 Project Title Adotp our canals Type of Project [X] Humanitarian [ ] VTT [ ] Scholarship Primary Host Partner Information
Primary International Partner Information
Grant Host Committee
Grant International Committee
Do any of these committee members have potential conflict of interest? If so, please briefly explain. None Tell us a little about your project. What are the main objectives of the project, and who will benefit from it? The health of freshwater systems is vital for the survival of all forms of life, yet it is severely threatened by pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. The Rotary-UNEP initiative builds on the success of a pilot program, called "Adopt a River for Sustainable Development," which saw UNEP and various districts collaborate on projects aimed at protecting rivers. Rotarians and Rotaractors have also actively participated in the protection and restoration of freshwater ecosystems in other regions of the world. This project idea is placed at an "Intermediate Level - Basic measurements on water quality" indicated in the Community Action For Fresh Water and consists in the installation of an electronic monitoring station containing multi-parameter probes, with the main objective of continuously measuring the main parameters of the water of the underground canals of Bologna. The project will help to avoid environmental and non-environmental threats and to develop a sustainable plan for the health of waterways and for the community involved, solving problems of various kinds. From the problem of the floods of the surrounding rivers to the problem of summer shallows, from infrastructural problems related to the underground network to safety risks, allowing rapid intervention in the face of pollution, the emergence of debris, mud, waste, bad smells and bad behavior. It is also intended to be a response to the frequent flooding problems to which the city has been subjected of Bologna in the last 3 years. The data collected, in fact, will help local institutions to carry out better planning of both scheduled maintenance and emergency activities and will also be public for all the beneficiaries of the project who are: the city of Bologna and the territories north of the municipality of Bologna, crossed by the Navile and Savena Abbandonato canals. Which area of focus will this project support?
Which goals of this area of focus will your project support? - How will you measure your project impact?
Do you know who will collect information for monitoring and evaluation? -
Humanitarian Project Bologna, Italy
Cooperating Organization (Optional)
Why did you choose to partner with this organization and what will its role be? - Partners (Optional) List any other partner that will participate in this project. - Volunteer Travelers (Optional) Provide name, email of traveler(s). - Describe this person's role in the project. - Rotarian Participants Describe the role that host Rotarians will have in this project. The Rotary Club Bologna Valle del Savena has taken care of the design, the relationship with the canal management company, and will manage the supply of equipment, implementation, reporting, economic management and monitoring of the project. The Rotary Club of Stockholm Meise - Bouchout will take care of the relationship with the host sponsor in the progress phases of the project and will give financial support and collaboration in reporting activities. Describe the role that international Rotarians will have in this project. The Rotary Club Bologna Valle del Savena is in contact with the Rotary Club Meise - Bouchout because of a search for international cooperation in projects that connect the countries of Northern Europe (Belgium, Germany and France) and the countries of Southern Europe, of which Italy is the representative. The management of the basins is carried out by public institutions and by the companies delegated by the municipality of Bologna to carry out certain functions such as those carried out by the company to which we will supply the equipment and that the committees are organized within their administrative structures. The challenges that will be presented will be evaluated in a collegial way through online meetings and virtual focus groups. What is the budget for this grant?
Tell us about the funding you have secured for your project.
Humanitarian Projects - Project Planning Describe the community needs that your project will address. The members of the beneficiary community of Bologna with a population of about 400,000, have - Page 7 of 16 - access to education that is guaranteed to the entire population of the territory and is given for at least eight years free of charge. In the area affected by the project there are schools, primary, secondary, university and hospitals. Although there are no dramatic emergencies from an economic point of view, water management has become a crucial problem from a safety and public health point of view. We highlight the following issues: Infrastructural problem: since a large part of the underground network is located, the problem of monitoring water quality presents difficulties in employing personnel at several points in confined places. Problem of continuity: monitoring is occasional, as are the related consequent interventions. Problem of the emergence of part of the Reno canal: greater exposure to city pollution. Debris problem during and after the floods of the surrounding rivers: the Emilia-Romagna area in recent years has had serious flooding of the rivers surrounding the city which have also generated deaths. The waters of the rivers in flood are full of debris, mud, logs, which, immersed in the city canals, would give problems in terms of operation and maintenance. In fact, in the days immediately following the flood, when there is a depletion queue, the canals are usually reopened and the water that enters is that of the river in the immediate aftermath of the flood. The risk is that the debris of the rivers in flood will reach the city with serious inconvenience. Wastewater problem: despite the efforts of recent decades, there is a strong threat of discharges of wastewater within the canals due to incorrect behavior or accidental situations. To date, the management of this phenomenon takes place only when the canals are put dry and therefore can be inspected. Summer dry problem: during the summer the level drops and waste, bad smells, ... How did your project team identify these needs. These needs were identified through surveys of the target population and audits among members of the project team. How were members of the benefiting community involved in finding solutions. The social and educational conditions reported above have facilitated the administration of a survey that is attached to this project divided into various parts: Professional Survey (Fall 2022) Satisfaction surveys administered following guided tours (all year round, peaking on underground visits -2,500 people in 3 weeks- in October 2023) Questionnaires to newsletter subscribers (about 10,000) Social media polls (about 10,000 Facebook followers and 3,000 Instagram) How were community members involved in planning the project. The results of the involvement of the beneficiary community members gave direction to the project. The protection of the quality of the water that passes through the canals obtained 62% of responses to the question "What are the main functions that GACRES must perform to fulfill its mandate?" and 38% to the question "On which functions do you think GACRES should focus its future efforts?" In general, the issues related to the increase in knowledge on the presence and functions of the canals and the improvement of hygienic characteristics and landscape aspects have had very high feedback. Humanitarian Projects - Project Implementation Summarize each step of your project's implementation.
Will you work in coordination with any related initiative in the community? If yes, briefly describe the other initiatives and how they relate to this project. If no, please explain. Are local initiatives not addressing these needs? Or, if they are, why did you decide not to work with them? Yes. The instrumentation will remain in the management of GACRES' technical staff, who will be responsible for managing the maintenance of the probes, the recording of data and their sharing with the other institutions delegated to the management of water resources in real time and organizing events to involve citizens, informing on the use of the instruments, the measured values and the significance that these values have on an environmental and management level. The company will transfer the results of the measurement to local public institutions. The Rotary Clubs supporting the project will participate in scheduled appointments in which they will be able to directly use the measurement instrumentation by carrying out on-site surveys at various points of the grid, transmitting the data to the bodies in charge. Please describe the training, community outreach, or educational programs this project will include. The project does not include direct training activities on the community, because the programs that educate the population will be managed by Gacres within their institutional activity and will consist of hydrocivism programs, events that will show the monitoring station, guided tours of the canals. Meetings will be held with the local press, institutions and citizens on the occasion of the launch of the project. These events will also include interventions aimed at raising awareness of the community on a responsible use of water. Programs that educate the population on sustainable and environmentally correct behaviors are carried out as part of the education system and by campaigns managed by public administrations. How were these needs identified? These needs were identified through surveys of the target population and audits among the members of the project team. Please refer to the files "Community evaluation for the results of global grants" and "Results of the Community evaluation of global grants" in the annex. What incentives (for example, monetary compensation, awards, certification, or publicity), will you use, if any, to encourage community members to participate in the project? Advertising at the Opificio delle Acque in Bologna and participation in club and city events. List any community members or community groups that will oversee the continuation of the project after grant-funded activities conclude. The equipment purchased will be managed and maintained by Gacres. The project will make it possible to continuously provide useful data to the municipality of Bologna to optimize the management of water, the use of which is in any case subject to municipal and regional regulations. The project will be sustainable over time because the entities are equipped with economic resources set by law. In fact, the roles and resources employed by government agencies are those entrusted to them by the state and regional laws of the Italian state and the beneficiary organization works on a contract stipulated with the Canale di Reno and Savena Consortia in Bologna. The different demands for water use are regulated by municipal and regional laws, so there are no conflicts related to water use. Budget Will you purchase budget items from local vendors? Explain the process you used to select vendors. Yes. The suppliers were selected on the basis of a criterion of completeness in the provision of the data that can be collected. Some probes do not detect important data for the project, those identified allow for more accurate analysis and do not allow modularity. If the parameters to be measured are added/updated in the future, the supplier guarantees compatible sensors that can be easily installed in place of existing ones in simple plug and play mode. The supplier in question also intervenes in the maintenance activity since, if there are anomalies, the latter are also transmitted remotely to the supplier and this equipment is equipped with a wiper (automatic windshield wiper), which allows to reduce ordinary maintenance times (3 months compared to 15 days for equipment without wiper), with less expenditure of human and economic resources. The possibility of on-site maintenance by the supplier was an additional selection criterion. Another parameter is that the supplier is a leader in titanium components of this sector to guarantee the durability of the equipment. Did you use competitive bidding to select vendors? If no, please explain. No. 2 estimates were collected and the one most compatible with the technological needs was selected. Being sophisticated technologies, we tried not to go beyond the two suppliers except with an increase in transport costs outside Italy without ensuring proper maintenance. The second estimate, then inevitably discarded, also presented higher costs. Please provide an operating and maintenance plan for the equipment or materials you purchased for this project. This plan should include who will operate and maintain the equipment and how they will be trained. Maintenance operations include cleaning the instrument and calibrating it. The multi-parameter probe is equipped with a Wiper (automatic wiper) that frequently guarantees automatic cleaning of the equipment, avoiding the phenomenon of fouling. This allows for routine manual maintenance to be carried out approximately every 3 months. Probes that are not equipped with it, in fact, normally need to be maintained every 15 days. The supplier also guarantees the remote connection, i.e. if the measured parameters should present anomalies, it is the supplier himself who will provide for the recalibration on site as the equipment also includes chemical solutions that are used in this sense. The titanium components guarantee maximum durability in the presence of any level of chemical-physical aggressiveness of the monitored water. Therefore, Gacres, in the person of Ing. Andrea Bolognesi, will manage maintenance in close contact with the supplier who will be able to intervene on site following anomalies detected remotely. Describe how community members will maintain the equipment after grant-funded activities conclude. Will replacement parts be available? Contact with the equipment supplier will be handled by Gacres and, in the event of failures, original spare parts are provided. If the grant will be used to purchase any equipment, will the equipment be culturally appropriate and conform to the community's technology standards? If yes, please explain. If no, describe how the project team will help community members adopt the technology. Yes. The equipment (multi-parameter probes) is certified according to product regulations. The declaration of conformity and the use and maintenance manual in accordance with the law will be attached. After the project is completed, who will own the items purchased by grant funds? No items may be owned by a Rotary district, club, or member. Gacres Funding Have you found a local funding source to sustain project outcomes for the long term? If yes, please describe this funding source. No Will any part of the project generate income for ongoing project funding? If yes, please explain. No Is your economic and community development activity a microcredit project? If yes, upload your microcredit supplement file. No income will be expected because the project does not need additional resources to ensure the performance of future activities because the personnel responsible for data collection and maintenance works are already included in the scope of Graces' ordinary activities. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||