Schermbeck is a municipality of about 14,000 inhabitants in the western German region of North Rhine-Westphalia. We have engaged the quadruple helix stakeholders and are working on getting more citizens on board.

The situation

Where is the issue or source: odour issues are coming from the sewage system and wastewater collection site. There have been some complaints from citizens.

D-Noses role and aims

Why did you select this pilot: The EGLV wants to include more citizen participation in water management approaches and is willing to implement D-NOSES tools in the long term.

How are you identifying and engaging all the stakeholders: We have done a City Safari and performed a thorough stakeholder analysis based on a media analysis and local knowledge by the emitting industry.

What do you hope to achieve: Schermbeck is ideal to test the D-NOSES methodology, because there are no conflicting sources of odours in the immediate vicinity. The local aim is to find ways to ameliorate the odour problem and the general aim is to introduce more participation into water management approaches.

Progress so far

The data collection phase lasted for over six months. Unfortunately, due to the corona pandemic it was difficult to engage a higher number of citizens in the project. In order to better narrow down how big the actual issue is a short survey will be conducted in late spring.