Natural deposits of mineral waters and hot springs are well known in central Europe. Their healing power is widely used and they are important drivers of local and regional economies in health care, wellness and tourism sectors. However, a common challenge is the sustainable management of mineral and thermal waters which on one hand are a basis for the existence of spas and on the other hand are a subject of various threats and pressures related to economic and urban development, mass tourism and careless sector policies.
The HealingPlaces project aims at a more sustainable development of spas by protecting the unique resources that constitute their basis. The partners extended their knowledge and awareness regarding the influence of various factors on underground water deposits by building multi-level and multi-territorial governance models of managing natural spa resources. A crucial element of the project was the construction of common, innovative and web-based tool for the assessment of threats and pressures on mineral and hot water deposits.
HealingPlaces activities were grouped around 3 main themes:
- environmental mapping and assessment – which resulted with state-of-art analyses and development of ready to use tools (the database on SPAs potential & threats and impact assessment tool), which helps in decision-making process and building ever wider awareness of healing water protection needs,
- pilot actions testing the newly developed solutions;
- development of a common strategy for sustainable SPAs.
The main aim of all pilot actions was the efficient reduction of conflicts between economic, social & environmental approaches, nevertheless the aspects addressed have been varied & focused on local specificity – from providing sustainable management plans, integrating regional&local spatial planning policies with curative water resources management, establishing the Green SPA Network, application of Product Environmental Footprint calculations to spa products to providing decision makers with the results of analysis & monitoring system with use of mobile App and VR solutions.
Various experiences gained thanks to regional pilot activities and tools development and testing, helped with the upcoming step of the project process – collaborative development of the joint strategy for sustainable SPA management. This document, the Integrated Strategy for sustainable management of SPAs’ most valuable natural resources, served as the core basis for partner regions to formulate their own regional sustainability plans to pave the way towards Central-European SPAs being in balance with nature, economy and our common future.
We invite you to learn more about HealingPlaces results – including lessons learned & tangible results from Pilot Actions, our Integrated Strategy and Best Practices Handbook and to check your SPA with the use of on-line or offline version of developed tools.
OUTPUTS
TOOLS
- The-Italian-APP---Local-Training-on-APP-tool-use (pdf 2.3 MB)
- Tool for integrated assessment of threats and pressures on main SPA’s resources-USER-GUIDE (pdf 1.8 MB)
- The-Italian-APP-Manual---Tutorial (pdf 1.2 MB)
- The-Italian-APP--HealingPlaces-VR-Storyboard-and-Immersive-experienc (pdf 1.9 MB)
- REPORT ON ANALYSIS OF TESTED WPT1 TOOLS DISSEMINATION POSSIBILITIES IN OTHER REGIONS (pdf 0.6 MB)
- Tool for integrated assessment of threats and pressures on main SPA’s resources-ONLINE-VERSION (pdf 0.6 MB)
- Tool for integrated assessment of threats and pressures on main SPA’s resources-EXCEL-VERSION (xlsx 0.2 MB)
- The HealingPlaces Geoportal (pdf 0.5 MB)
Check out the videos about the project on our Youtube channel.
promotion materials
project duration
Start Date
april 2019
End Date
june 2022
PROJECT IN NUMBERS
3
TOOLS DEVELOPED
8
PILOT ACTIONS REALIZED
1
STRATEGY DEVELOPED
1
HANDBOOK OF BEST PRACTICES
