Limited resources like land, water, materials and energy are subject to an enormous urbanisation pressure. The R2Q project is dedicated to organise the use of resources in city districts in a more sustainable way.

The project aims to develop a planning tool that will enable the systematic, efficient and methodological management of resources in urban districts. According to a modular principle, planning and evaluation tools, various construction and process technologies as well as ideas for participation processes relating to resource management will be brought together. This way, local planning authorities will be enabled access to improved simulation approaches to manage flood events and to methods to analyse and evaluate multifunctional land uses.

The project R2Q aims to develop and test novel and pioneering approaches allowing for the sustainable management of resources in cities. R2Q is coordinated by the University of Applied Sciences Münster and receives funding from the programme “Resource-efficient City Districts for the Future” issued by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The example of two districts of the City of Herne (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), where both residential and commercial areas as well as traffic areas are located close together, will be used to investigate how water, urban areas, materials – for example building materials – and energy can be used more efficiently by linking all residents. To this end, R2Q will develop a resource plan coordinated with professionals, citizens and policy makers, which can be used for future construction and redevelopment measures in city districts, also outside of Herne.

The KWB contributes its expertise in rainwater management and water pollution control to the project and will develop tools to assess the impact of the resource plans on the quality of water bodies. The particular challenge is to create functional and simple evaluation and model approaches to support planning processes.