Timisoara, Romania
City population: 314823
Duration: 2009 – unknown
Implementation status: Completed
Scale: Meso-scale: Regional, metropolitan and urban level
Project area: unknown
Type of area: Residential, Other
Last updated: October 2021

The greening of the Bega channel is a project which dates from 2008 and which aims at cleaning and revitalizing the channel on a distance of 44 km, in order to improve water quality, increase economic activities related with the river, and avoid future floods of the area. Since the channel has not been revitalized from 1945, the 2008 project is seen as an important step in improving not only the life quality of the Timisoara's inhabitants but also a major step in including environmental issues on the official agenda of the municipality. (1)

Overview

Nature-based solution

  • Blue infrastructure
  • Rivers/streams/canals/estuaries

Key challenges

  • Water management (SDG 6)
  • Flood protection
  • Improvements to water quality
  • Green space, habitats and biodiversity (SDG 15)
  • Green space creation and/or management
  • Health and well-being (SDG 3)
  • Enabling opportunities for physical activity
  • Improving physical health
  • Creation of opportunities for recreation
  • Economic development and employment (SDG 8)
  • Economic development: service sectors
  • Tourism support
  • Cultural heritage and cultural diversity
  • Protection of historic and cultural landscape/infrastructure

Focus

Improved governance of green or blue areas, Management and improved protection of rivers and other blue areas

Project objectives

1. Make a continuous walkway for pedestrians and a cycle track along the entire canal. 2. Protect existing green spaces and revitalize and rearrange them. (1) 3. Reintroduction of public transport on the Bega channel.(1) 4. Improve recreation and leisure.(1) 5. Better accessibility to water by creating new ways of access.(2) 6. Create new connections between residential areas and the city center with new pedestrian bridges and alleys.(2) 7. Revitalizing existing infrastructure and unused buildings for socio-cultural, leisure or residential use.(3) 8. Investment development near the Bega Channel. (1, 2) 9. Dredging the channel and distributing the sludge into ecological deposits.(3) 10. Create economic opportunities for the inhabitants of Timisoara but also between Serbia and Romania (3)

Implementation activities

1. At the beginning of July 2009, the decolonization works began to resume, after being suspended for several weeks due to lack of funds. As such, 10,000 cubic meters of sludge have been removed from the Bega Canal out of a total of 300,000 laid down in the Bega's decolouration plan between Timisoara and Sanmyhai. (1) 2. The sludge resulted from the dredging operations will be deposited in six ecological warehouses, two of them in Timisoara, and another is planned to be located at Sânmihaiu Român. (1,2)

Main beneficiaries

  • Local government/Municipality
  • Citizens or community groups
  • Young people and children

Governance

Management set-up

  • Government-led

Type of initiating organisation

  • EU body
  • Local government/municipality

Participatory approaches/ community involvement

  • Unknown

Details on the roles of the organisations involved in the project

This is a joint intervention between the Romanian local authorities of the city of Timisoara and the Council of Europe Development Bank. The municipality auctioned the project (like it is done in various cases) and "SC Apascosa & SC Socot SA & SC Deltacons" SA won the case (1).

Project implemented in response to ...

... an EU policy or strategy? Unknown
... a national policy or strategy? Yes (The intervention mention Law no. 350/2001, regarding Territorial and Urban Planning, and the Governmental Decision no. 525/1996, republished in 2002 regarding the General Regulation of Urban Planning (7) )
... a local policy or strategy? Yes (The intervention mentions Timisoara's Municipality Decision: no.94/1998, Rehabilitation of the Bega Channel (8))

Financing

Total cost

More than €4,000,000

Source(s) of funding

  • EU funds
  • Public national budget
  • Public local authority budget

Type of funding

  • Earmarked public budget
  • Loan

Non-financial contribution

Unknown

Impacts and Monitoring

Environmental impacts

  • Water management and blue areas
  • Improved water quality
  • Green space and habitat
  • Increased green space area

Economic impacts

  • Attraction of business and investment

Socio-cultural impacts

  • Unknown

Type of reported impacts

Expected impacts

Presence of formal monitoring system

Unknown

Presence of indicators used in reporting

No evidence in public records

Presence of monitoring/ evaluation reports

No evidence in public records

Availability of a web-based monitoring tool

No evidence in public records

References

1. Primaria Municipiului Timisoara (2009), Plan Urbanistic Zonal. Malurile Canalului Bega, P.U.Z, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
2. Beilicci E, Beilicci R. (2012), Current problems and solutions to revitalize the Bega Channel, in AGRIS, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
3. Primaria Municipiului Timisoara (2008), Timisoara Ecologica, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
4. Primaria Municipiului Timisoara (2012), Starea economica, sociala si de mediu a municipiului Timisoara, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
5. Casa Poporului (2008), "Canalul Bega", (Website not available in 2020)
6. European Regional Development Fund (no date), General presentation, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
7. Guvernul Romaniei (1996), Hotararea nr. 525, 27 Iunie 1996, Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)
8. Primaria Municipiului Timisoara (no date), Decizia de Reabilitare a Canalului Bega (no. 94/1998) Available at Source link (Accessed 29-6-2020)