facilitates an online dialogue between citizens and official representatives of the Ionian Islands Region – IonR (Greece) and the Valencia Region (Spain), on issues regarding water protection and management in the Mediterranean.

The project involves two collaborative platforms one for each participating region.

The U@MARENOSTRUM project:

to portray the latest developments on the IonR platform,

to show by statistical data provided by Google Analytics the platform’s overall activity,

to give in numbers the progress of citizens participation,

to showcase the IonR’s contribution to citizens’ input.

This presentation aims:

From the period of end January 2010 till end January 2011

there have been a total of :

3,451 Visits, from which 33.85% was New Visits, with 1,178 Absolute Unique Visitors and with 39,755 Page-views.

IonR Platform’s overall activity:

From the period of end January 2010 till end January 2011

The 3,451 Visits came from: 38.63% direct search, 34.45% referring sites, and 26.92% search engines.

Additionally Search sent 929 total visits via 561 keywords the top 5 were:

πολιτικήσ των υδάτων from 15.07% of the visits, marenostrum περιβάλλον from 4.52% of the visits, u@marenostrum from 3.77% of the visits, περιφερειακό συμβούλιο υδάτων from 2.91% of the visits, uatmarenostrumionianislands from 2.15% of the visits.

From the period of end January 2010 till end January 2011

The 3,451 Visits to the Ionian Islands Region platform came from 29 countries/territories.

The top 10 of which are the following: Greece, Belgium, United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Russia, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

From the period of end January 2010 till end January 2011

During this period there have been 1673 registered users.

the 1673 registered users made 1240 posted arguments in the forum and created 89 Topics within 9 processes’ discussion categories.

Participation results indicate:

the need for an integrated policy for the protection of endangered species in the Mediterranean (sharks, dolphins, sea turtles Caretta-Caretta, tuna-fish, Mediterranean monk seals etc.);

the need for prevention of water scarcity and droughts in the Mediterranean, as well as protection of island wetlands (this topic was suggested by the Region itself in cooperation with WWF – Hellas);

the need to address the issue of the extensive pollution of the Mediterranean sea, including the issue of the waste-water management of the oil-mills in the Ionian sea; and lastly,

the need for better implementation of the Integrated Maritime Policy in the Mediterranean and of the strategy for the marine environment.

Most popular Forum topics were:

The users of the platform in the Ionian Islands Region have situated 216 markers on the interactive maps of the processes

There are two online petitions, which are both closed. The first one with the name “Νεφέλη” was signed by 130 registered users. The second one which is the common petition for the three regions with the name “Stricter penalties on the prevention of pollution from ships of the Mediterranean Sea” (“Αυστηρότερη επιβολή κυρώσεων σχετικά με τα μέτρα πρόληψης της ρύπανσης από πλοία για την Μεσόγειο”) was signed by 863 registered users.

the common survey for the three regions – with the title “Questionnaire for the user satisfaction assessment” (“Ερωτηματολόγιο για την αξιολόγηση της ικανοποίησης των χρηστών”) is completed by 466 registered users.

22 Electronic Letters have been sent to Officials of the Region by citizen-users.

These letters dealt with issues such as: water pollution, waste-water management from oil-mills, protection of endangered species such as the sea-turtle, participation of the Region in the electronic dialogue, as well as suggestions for similar initiatives in municipal level, etc.

IonR regards citizens’ contribution on water issues is of great importance.

The citizens’ electronic letters were answered by public officials of the Region and are publicly available on the platform’s website.

IonR in order to encourage citizens to continue the online dialogue as well as their activities on the U@MARENOSTRUM platform has sent an official letter (in Greek) which is also publicly available on the platform’s website.

In its letter, the Region underlines its support on the project.

It further highlights that the water protection and management issues have a direct affect on citizens’ everyday life and therefore their contribution is of great value and needs to be taken into consideration in policy making.

IonR’s contribution:

Visit the IonR U@MARENOSTRUM platform:

www.uatmarenostrumionianislands.gr