Europe is an urban and increasingly urban continent with the percentage of the population living in urban centers expected to increase from over 70% in 2015 to more than 80% in 2050.

By 2030, 5 billion people will be living in urban areas with hundreds of millions living in one of the world’s 41 mega-cities, up from 28 today. At the same time, global demand for water is projected to outstrip supply by 40%. As such, cities around the world are at risk of water insecurity, which is the inability of a population to access good quality water of suf­ficient quantity necessary for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being and socio-economic development.