Background Sustainable water consumption patterns are important for growth and prosperity in Europe, yet climate change continues to threaten the availability of water. Effective tools are thus required to ensure that society as a whole can best respond to concerns regarding the quality and quantity of water supplies. Many water management bodies have specialised in technical aspects of maintaining water supplies. The remit of these bodies now needs to extend and encompass appropriate communication capacities that are capable of informing customers about options and actions to safeguard sustainable patterns of water consumption. This includes providing information about lifestyle changes as well as technical and financial mechanisms for managing water supplies. Objectives The WATACLIC project’s main objective was to achieve reductions in water and energy consumption within Italian urban areas, via a combination of new fiscal and communication tools. A wide range of stakeholders were to be involved in the process that would comprise the following technical actions: Introduction of new rules on urban planning to encourage greater use of technologies/strategies such as rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling and other techniques that enable more sustainable urban water use; and Adoption of tariff schemes aimed at discouraging unwise water use. Accompanying information efforts aimed to achieve the following: Improved knowledge and awareness among professional plumbing organisations about water saving techniques; and Effective awareness-raising campaigns directed at the general public about issues such as sustainable water consumption and associated links with energy consumption.Results The WATACLIC project ran five information campaigns that demonstrated how technical and administrative stakeholders could contribute to the reduction of water (and energy) consumption in urban areas. These campaigns were: C1 - new urban rules for water management; C2 - economic tools for water management; C3 and C5 - awareness raising of final users and of professional plumbers; and C4 - efficiency of the water supply system and the link water-energy. Information campaigns targeted local public administrators, experts, technicians and consultants, regional and water authorities, water authorities, and plumbers and installers. Good results came issues concerning ‘water and money’ and ‘water and energy’. Some 22 million people were covered by the target groups in C1, which led to potential water-savings being estimated at 229 million cubic meters per year. Energy savings of up to 133 GWh per year were also forecast from C1. For C2, the project team is confident that in a reasonable time its objective to adopt tariff schemes aimed at discouraging unwise use of water will be reached at national scale. More difficult will be the adoption of economic tools to stimulate new technologies. Specific outcomes confirmed by the campaigns’ monitoring data noted that a higher than expected response rate occurred in campaign C3 (45 joining the World Water Day initiative vs. 10 foreseen), and campaign C5 (13 vs. foreseen 10). C4 covered a similar population size and led to: Annual water-savings estimated potentially up to 137 million m3; Annual energy savings up to 80 GWh; Pump performance’ increased by around 6% (plus possible energy savings for the water utilities up to 84 GWh annually; A proposed solution to improve water and energy efficiency for distribution networks. This is in the WATACLIC database, and can be downloadable from the website. Several Water Utilities from the project are planning interventions to reduce water losses and the AB University of Bologna is already providing scientific advice to these. Thus, it is reasonable to forecast a significant positive impact from the project here. Other project actions elaborated studies, developed databases and consulted key stakeholders (e.g. municipalities, provinces and regions, the Ministry of the Environment). Dissemination activities included two international conferences (Romania and Greece). In total, 1 424 participants and 734 entities took part in the project. Overall outcomes increased intended awareness among the target groups but delays could occur in the uptake of the approaches and technologies that were promoted by the campaign. Project findings confirmed that challenges remain because in Italy, compared to other environmental issues, water saving and sustainable urban water management do not receive much interest from the general public or from the public administrations and the industry. A policy paper addressing implementation challenges and key actions for urban water management was developed, and subsequently endorsed by public entities. Project actions clarified a serious lack of interest in water management issues by industry and plumbers' associations. These hold the potential to be ‘multipliers’ for sustainable approaches to water management. However, such stakeholder-disinterest compromised the project’s plans for reaching a wider target audience. Events needed to be revised in order to take account of this and more ‘market signals’ (e.g. fair pricing of water) from government level could be useful to help improve interest. (via coordinated and integrated actions). The project's potential transferability is considered to be high in Italy, central Europe and Mediterranean areas). A specific document for this purpose was disseminated during the international conferences. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).