Background Climate change is expected to increase both the frequency and the severity of extreme weather conditions. Under this scenario, natural resource management is required to assess vulnerability and to identify which actions need to be taken. In southern Europe the impact of climate change increasingly affects water resources, drinking water availability and future drinking water management. Drinking water demand is closely linked to increased urbanisation. At the same time, water suppliers are often under pressure to increase the quantity of water, at a time when climate change can have unforeseeable effects on reservoirs. Short term measures should ensure the availability of water; however, long-term adaptation policies must also be developed. The involvement of local authorities and citizens in water management planning and water governance can greatly influence development plans and help businesses gain a more sustainable perspective. Objectives The overall goal of the ‘WIZ’ - WaterIZe spatial planning project was to integrate the protection and sustainable management of water in urban planning processes and local policy areas. The project aimed to incorporate long-term analysis of drinking water management in urban spatial planning, by creating a platform for local authorities to be involved in decision processes. The project contributed to the integration of the European Framework for Adapting to Climate Change into other local and EU regulations, particularly in relation to future water management conditions, and to the establishment of a network of European projects to facilitate transnational co-operation. Results The WIZ project developed and demonstrated an innovative approach to drinking water management, which takes into account the potential impacts of climate change. The project’s approach involves water resource allocation in relation to request trends and expected resource availability. This will facilitate the adaptions that will be needed to ensure future availability of water within informed urban planning decisions and - with regards to citizens - life choices. The WIZ project team developed an online platform that includes two services: WIZ4All and WIZ4Planners. Citizens can find information about current and future water availability for specific locations via the WIZ4All service. WIZ4Planners is a decision-support service for local authorities and other stakeholders concerned with territorial and urban planning. It provides information related to estimates of the needs and availability of clean water, with comparisons between settlement scenarios and climatic scenarios, and also gives estimates of the costs of the water supply infrastructures. The open-source code of the WIZ platform engine enables constant improvements to be made to the system. The WIZ project conducted an analysis of long-term management of drinking water, in a system where water management has been integrated into land use planning. The WIZ approach (in particular, WIZ4Planners) defined a decision process that integrates, firstly, the prediction model of the effects of climate change on the availability of water resources and, secondly, the spatial data provided by the municipalities involved in the demonstration of WIZ services. WIZ enables water authorities to prepare investment plans with a more complete picture and harmonised data characterising the water demands of an area. As a result of the project, awareness of water management issues and participation in water-related activities has increased among citizens and businesses. The online platform offers a range of freely-available information on water resources, making possible a "participatory management" approach. Users can also contribute actively by reporting the perceived quality of drinking water and failures or other dysfunctions of service. This outcome contributed to the implementation of the Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information. Public involvement can put a greater focus on the value of drinking water and its quality, and encourages more sustainable patterns of consumption. The WIZ approach was introduced into the decision-making practices of 10 pilot municipalities in Tuscany, Italy, and 2 in Galicia, Spain. These municipalities were involved in the definition of the online platform. During the project lifetime, about 11% of the water needs for the population residing in the demonstration areas was managed through the WIZ services. The Tuscany Water Authority (AIT) officially invited the Coordinating Beneficiary to promote the use of WIZ throughout the region; while in Spain, the approach is being extended to other municipalities. The demonstration of the WIZ approach in two different European contexts means that it should be easily replicable in other countries. WIZ increased transnational cooperation and the exchange of results between European projects. Moreover, the WIZ project collaborated with various organisations and participated in numerous events and initiatives at national and international level, for example, becoming part of the European WISE-RTD network (Water Knowledge Portal) and the Network of Sustainable Energy in A Coruña. WIZ has also been included among the projects CLIMATE – ADAPT (the European Platform on adaptation to climate change). The project supported the local implementation of the European Framework for Action on Adaptation to Climate Change and has contributed to the implementation at local level of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). In particular it has influenced the decision-making planning processes and has made an important contribution to the work of modification of the Tuscany Regional Law 1/2005 on Land Governance. Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).