Ioannina is the capital and the largest city of the Epirus region, in north-west Greece. Located on lake Pamvotis, Ioannina includes a small, inhabited island that tourists and residents can reach by boat. Ioannina experiences an important presence of tourists also for short periods of time.
Over the last decades, a combination of agricultural runoff, water transport, solid waste and wastewater has endangered the lake’s ecological health, altering its functions and composition, thus generating emissions. The Municipality aims to make lake Pamvotis as sustainable as possible in collaboration with the island’s local community and with stakeholders whose activities are relevant for the lake’s ecosystem.
However, the lack of data and tools for monitoring water quality, identifying pollution sources and assessing the health of the lake’s ecosystem, prevents strategic, long-term decision-making and collaboration with stakeholders. Moreover, there is a need for engaging incentives for tourists, residents, local businesses and farmers to collectively take care of the lake and minimise the negative impact of their actions.
The gap to fill in is to develop a monitoring tool to assess the current situation and gain quantitative data on how different activities are polluting the lake, thus turning it into a greenhouse-gas production plant. A possible solution could be a combination of data collection, monitoring and visualization of environmental impact. The goal is to promote strategic decision-making and behavioral change in stakeholders such as tourists, small boat owners, hotels, restaurants, etc.
To this end, CLIMABOROUGH supports the City on its innovative public procurement process that will start on July 14.
To have more information about the Ioannina challenge, you can read the dedicated section.
