Lysis Project 3rd Project Meeting Municipality of Pavlos Melas - Greece

The municipality of Pavlos Melas successfully hosted the 3rd project meeting of the project “Joint actions for the development and implementation of new technologies for the optimal management of water resources in the urban environment” – LYSIS which is funded by the Cooperation Programme “Interreg V-A Greece-Bulgaria 2014-2020”. The meeting took place at the premises of Lazart Hotel and all project partners participated, namely the Municipality of Drama (LB), the Municipality of Pavlos Melas (PB2), the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (PB3) and the Municipality of Blagoevgrad (PB4). PB5 – Active Youths from Bulgaria did not attend the meeting. The JS Project Officer Mrs Zoi Tselia also participated in the project meeting.

The main goal of the meeting was to present in details the progress that has been made concerning the implementation of the actions included in the programme as well as the problems that arose and the potential solutions. Generally, all partners have assigned the necessary contracts and the accrued deliverables come in time. In accordance, all payments are allocated as foreseen and the cash flow form the management authority is very satisfied. However, the representative of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki pointed out the necessity of extending the implementation period in order to be able to analyze extra data and produce a credible protocol. As a result, the Municipality of Drama will submit a project modification application.

Following the presentations of project partners, the agenda of the meeting included a field visit at Dendropotamos park - the intervention area in the Municipality of Pavlos Melas, where the pilot action is taking place. The representative of Aristotle University presented in details the way the water management system operates. Many employees of the green department of the Municipality of Pavlos Melas attended the field visit and a productive discussion about the system took place. It appeared that Lysis project is coming to the Municipality of Pavlos Melas at the right time, since the challenge for optimizing water consumption at the parks is of paramount importance. Moreover, Lysis project gives further incentives to scale up the implementation of the project at more parks of the Municipality.

All in all, sustainable and environmental policies are top priorities of all project partners. During the fruitful cooperation we have the opportunity to exchange knowledge, learn about good practices and encourage each other to use nature based solutions and deal with urban challenges in sustainable ways.