| projects-281 |
952396 |
SMARTWATER |
Promoting SMART agricultural WATER management in Bosnia and Herzegovina |
H2020 |
H2020-WIDESPREAD-2018-2020 |
WIDESPREAD-05-2020 |
2021-01-01 |
2024-06-30 |
Completed |
€ 000 891 757.50 |
The main objectives of SMARTWATER are: 1) to reinforce the networking, research and innovation capacities of the University of Banja Luka (UNI-BL), University of Sarajevo (UNSA) and other institutions from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the field of sustainable agricultural water management; and 2) to increase their competences and fund-rising skills for a successful participation in the EU Research and Innovation Programs. The project will develop a large set of joint activities promoting networking, joint experimental fields, research cooperation and the exchange of knowledge and experts on specific topics, which are compatible with the overall national research strategy and include the application of smart technologies (cloud-based and remote sensing) in agricultural water management, optimization of water-energy-food nexus and climate change impact and adaptation measures. SMARTWATER foresees the publication of joint research documents in international conferences and peer-reviewed journals. The project will provide technical assistance and expertise to improve research and innovation capacities of BH institutions and delineate adequate national research strategies and policies for the future. The project will boost the S&T capacity through a series of capacity building actions focusing mainly on the early stage researchers. These include advanced training courses, participation in a joint MSc program, summer schools and hands-on workshops on R&I funding. A modern scientific strategy for stepping up and stimulating scientific excellence and innovation capacity will be outlined following a multi-stakeholder participatory approach. An effective communication and dissemination strategy for the adequate promotion of twinning activities and ensuring the expected impacts at regional, national, EU and global level will be adopted. The activities will be carried out in collaboration with three reputed EU international research partners (CIHEAM-IAMB, CSIC and ISA), and SME. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/952396 |
Urban water' |
| projects-282 |
689682 |
AMBER |
Adaptive Management of Barriers in European Rivers |
H2020 |
H2020-SC5-2014-2015 |
SC5-07-2015 |
2016-06-01 |
2020-09-30 |
Completed |
€ 006 238 103.75 |
Rivers rank among some of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, and are the focus of costly restoration programmes that cost billions to taxpayers. Much of Europe depends on water from rivers for drinking, food production, and the generation of hydropower, which is essential for meeting the EU renewable energy target. Yet only half the EU surface waters have met the WFD’s 2015 target of good ecological status, due in part to the fragmentation of habitats caused by tens of thousands of dams and weirs which also pose a flood hazard. Some barriers are old and out of use, but may have historical value, while the life span of others will soon come to an end and may need to be removed. But barriers also provide energy, water, fishing and leisure opportunities, and may also help to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species. Improving stream connectivity has been flagged as one of the priorities for more efficient stream restoration but effective rehabilitation of ecosystem functioning in European rivers needs to take the complexity and trade-offs imposed by barriers into account. AMBER will deliver innovative solutions to river fragmentation in Europe by developing more efficient methods of restoring stream connectivity through adaptive barrier management. The project seeks to address the complex challenge of river fragmentation through a comprehensive barrier adaptive management process, based on the integration of programme design, management, and monitoring to systematically test assumptions about barrier mitigation, adapt and learn. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/689682 |
Rivers and estuaries' |
| projects-283 |
776692 |
WaterWorks2017 |
Water Works 2018-2022 in Support of the Water JPI (WaterWorks2017) and of the EC Call SC5-33-2017: Closing the water cycle gap |
H2020 |
H2020-SC5-2016-2017 |
SC5-33-2017 |
2018-01-01 |
2023-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 018 949 876.01 |
The WaterWorks2017 project is pooling resources from the 23 participating research programme owners / managers of 19 countries to implement a joint call for proposals, with EU co-funding in the area of closing the water cycle gap. It will support delivery of priorities identified in the Water Joint Programming Initiative (Water JPI) Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) in order to reconcile water supply and demand, both in terms of quantity and quality, and also in terms of space and time. It covers the following sub-themes:• Enabling Sustainable Management of Water Resources;• Strengthening Socio-economic Approaches to Water Management.WaterWorks2017 includes 8 organisations from associated and third countries in an effort to reinforce international cooperation. Additional Activities will also be carried out to further support the implementation and strategy of the Water JPI. The overall aims include:• Supporting the implementation and development of the Water JPI on priorities identified in its SRIA;• Pooling financial resources from participating national and regional research programmes and implementing a co-funded transnational and multi-disciplinary call for research and innovation proposals;• Pooling additional financial resources to implement a joint call for proposals resulting in grants to third parties without EU co-funding (through a Thematic Annual Programming action - TAP); • Overcoming the fragmentation of European water related research, development and innovation (RDI) activities while avoiding overlaps with ongoing actions co-funded by the European Commission and/or the Member States; • Improving the implementation of research and innovation programmes in these fields through exchange of good practices;• Contributing to the implementation of EU Water policies, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6 and SDG 13, as well as the conclusions of the COP21 Agreement; and• Seeking synergies with international research programmes beyond Europe. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/776692 |
Urban water', 'Rivers and estuaries', 'Water reservoir', 'Groundwater', 'Wetlands', 'Coastal waters', 'Snow and ice' |
| projects-284 |
649149 |
EuroMED-IMWC |
EuroMED Cooperation. Inland and Marine Water Challenges |
H2020 |
H2020-Adhoc-2014-20 |
Europe |
2014-07-01 |
2014-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 000 125 500.00 |
The project supports the organization of the Italian Presidency event ‘EuroMED cooperation. Inland and Marine Water Challenges’, strongly emphasizing Mediterranean cooperation on research and innovation. In the framework of the ENP and the UNEP/MAP Barcelona Convention and in line with H2020 work-programme, the event is designed as a two day conference embracing present political debate for the identification of urgent challenges to advance the frontier of science and to foster technological innovation to sustain economic growth and EuroMED cooperation. The event - to be held in Naples in September 2014 - offers the unique opportunity to underline the links between inland and marine waters, with special emphasis to the impacts that such a link has on society and economic growth, particularly in a Region whose relevant economic activities like fishery, agriculture, and coastal and marine tourism are clearly affected by the water management issue. As milestone towards the definition of a roadmap to tackle these objectives, on the first day four parallel workshops will address: (1) Water resources and land management impacts on inland and sea water in the Mediterranean Region; (2) A Mediterranean integrated Ocean observing system to support sustainable coastal and marine tourism; (3) Building Ecosystem based approach to Fishery and Aquaculture in the Mediterranean Sea; (4) Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) in the Mediterranean Region. On the second day, a plenary session will finally deliver the key output message. In order to guarantee the effectivness of the event, different stakeholders from public and private sector will actively be involved in the organization, including policy makers at Ministry level and private companies. Besides Member States and international organizations, a broad participation of representatives from non-EU countries is expected. To maximize the impacts strong efforts will be also devoted to communication and dissemination activities. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/649149 |
Rivers and estuaries', 'Coastal waters' |
| projects-285 |
783989 |
WATER4AGRI |
Securing water for food and safety with the world's most advanced soil moisture information derived from satellites |
H2020 |
H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017 |
SMEInst-04-2016-2017 |
2017-10-01 |
2019-03-31 |
Completed |
€ 001 914 375.00 |
European agriculture is facing important challenges in the coming decades linked to our changing climate. Periods of droughts and floods will further increase which threaten production and require a smart usage of our vulnerable water resources. Climate change also stimulates crop disease, which causes farmers to use more pesticides and in turn endangers water quality and impacts people's health and the environment. Satellite Remote Sensing has a crucial role to play in tackling these challenges. At VanderSat we have developed a method to provide accurate high-resolution images of soil moisture, at any place on Earth 24/7 a year. Soil moisture is a key indicator for the physical status of a plant, and has a strong predictive value with respect to crop yield and weather conditions including flooding and droughts. By combining microwave data obtained from different satellites – including the ones in the Copernicus Sentinel constellation – we are revealing a revolutionary data set that can be used to retrieve key information about the water availability for crops at field level. This data is crucial for improving the accuracy of Agricultural (Ag.) models that are the backbone of modern agribusiness. Through the WATER4AGRI project we want to lift the technology to TRL9 by: (1) scaling VanderSat soil moisture for implementation in Ag. models and, (2) demonstrating the effectiveness of VanderSat in the two most widespread Ag. models. With VanderSat our customers will be able to accurately predict crop yield, pesticide requirements, droughts and flooding and, most important, reduce climate related risks for their businesses. VanderSat is creating business opportunities that were unimaginable before, like reducing crop risks through smart re-insurance strategies and integrated pest management. In doing this VanderSat impacts agribusiness in the most important dimension: improving yield and the overall profit or loss of the operation. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/783989 |
Groundwater', 'Urban water' |
| projects-286 |
658025 |
CRISIS |
Coastal flood risk in Europe and the socio-economic impacts in a changing climate |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 |
MSCA-IF-2014-EF |
2016-03-01 |
2018-02-28 |
Completed |
€ 000 195 454.80 |
A large portion of the coastal population worldwide, including Europe, is already vulnerable to extreme high sea level events. In the future it is expected that climate change will increase coastal flood risk making costly adaptation inevitable. In order to help develop robust and flexible coastal management strategies, decision makers need to explore how, when, and where future changes in the physical environment will require immediate action. This is aggravated by the existence of large uncertainties in climate projections. Impact assessment models, such as the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) model, have been used extensively to assess the socio-economic impacts associated with coastal flooding under climate change and to explore the benefits of mitigation, adaptation, and migration. However, because the DIVA model is applied at broad scales, it is based on a number of significant assumptions. Most notably, present-day return water levels (one of the key forcing parameters in the model) were derived using a simple global approach. Moreover, decadal variations in storminess and associated changes in future return water levels were ignored. Storm surges and river floods were assumed to be fully independent and vertical land movement rates were approximated with a global glacial isotactic adjustment model ignoring other potential contributors, such as land subsidence associated with ground water extraction. These shortcomings will be specifically addressed within the fellowship at the European level. The results will be used along with existing data bases and model infrastructure to develop a regional version of DIVA. The latter will be applied to perform the most comprehensive and realistic (in terms of temporal variations) mesoscale flood risk analysis of the European coastline to date, accounting, throughout the fellowship, for the full range of inherent model and scenario uncertainties. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/658025 |
Coastal waters', 'Urban water' |
| projects-287 |
860800 |
RIBES |
RIver flow regulation, fish BEhaviour and Status |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019 |
MSCA-ITN-2019 |
2020-01-01 |
2023-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 004 048 220.16 |
In 2016 serious concerns on the achievement of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 targets, due to the continuing loss of biodiversity and degradation of aquatic habitats, led to the urgent adoption of a new Resolution for implementing ecosystem restoration measures. Moreover, on December 2018 the EU raised to 32% the binding renewable energy target for 2030, bringing further input to hydropower development. Meeting these targets sets challenging issues for mitigating the impacts of man-made structures in rivers that fragment habitats and prevent movement and migration of aquatic organisms. The proposed ETN will train 15 ESRs in the interdisciplinary field of Ecohydraulics to find innovative solutions for freshwater fish protection and river continuity restoration in anthropogenically altered rivers. The 15 ESRs will carry out an innovative and integrated research programme within a multidisciplinary and intersectoral Network, including 8 leading European Universities, consultancy companies, public agencies and hydropower industry, encompassing experts in fish biology, river ecology, environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulic engineering. The 15 ESRs will have access to a number of laboratory and field facilities, modelling techniques, experimental practices and instrumental technologies, to expand current understanding of key fundamental fish bio-mechanical, behavioural and physiological processes, and to promote development of novel tools and management solutions in the area of freshwater fish protection. ESRs will be enrolled in specific PhD training programmes according to the rules of 6 host countries and will undertake a Network-wide training programme inclusive of research activities in at least 2 EU countries, short courses at 5 Network Schools, and a series of dissemination and public outreach actions, with the fundamental goal of forming a group of young scientists and practitioners who will play a key role in the water sector at the European scale. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/860800 |
Rivers and estuaries' |
| projects-288 |
637010 |
EGSIEM |
European Gravity Service for Improved Emergency Management |
H2020 |
H2020-EO-2014 |
EO-1-2014 |
2015-01-01 |
2017-12-31 |
Completed |
€ 002 499 550.00 |
Earth observation (EO) satellites yield a wealth of data for scientific, operational and commercial exploitation. However, the redistribution of environmental mass is not yet part of the EO data products to date. These observations, derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and in future by GRACE-FO (Follow-on), deliver fundamental insights into the global water cycle. Changes in continental water storage control the regional water budget and can, in extreme cases, result in floods and droughts that often claim a high toll on infrastructure, economy and human lives. The aim of this proposal is to demonstrate that mass redistribution products open the door for innovative approaches to flood and drought monitoring and forecast.The timeliness and reliability of information is the primary concern for any early-warning system. We aim to increase the temporal resolution from one month, typical for GRACE products, to one day and to provide gravity field information within 5 days (near real-time). Early warning indications derived from these products are expected to improve the timely awareness of potentially evolving hydrological extremes and to help in the scheduling of high-resolution follow-up observations. We will provide adequate data products and indicators for tentative integration into the work of the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI, operated by the German Aerospace Center) and its future use within international initiatives such as the Copernicus Emergency Management Service and the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters”. The performance of our products will be assessed with complementary data and post-processed mass products derived from the combined knowledge of the entire European GRACE community unified in our consortium.Our efforts thus culminate in three dedicated services: 1) a scientific combination service, 2) a near real-time service and 3) a hydrological/early warning service. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/637010 |
Groundwater', 'Urban water' |
| projects-289 |
701914 |
ECO.G.U.S. |
ECOsystem services for resilient and sustainable cities: an ecohydrological approach for Green Urban Spaces |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2015 |
MSCA-IF-2015-GF |
2016-08-15 |
2018-11-14 |
Completed |
€ 000 197 720.10 |
For the first time in recorded history the majority of people live in cities and the increasing urbanization modifies their mass, momentum, and energy budgets: in the next decades redevelopment, densification, population increase and demographic shift, as well as climate change will potentially impact the production and consumption of urban ecosystem services. Among the various ecosystem services the ECO.G.U.S. proposal focuses on Green Urban Spaces (GUS). Under the framework of socio-ecohydrology, the ECO.G.U.S. project main goal is to develop scientific tools to quantify the GUS sustainability and their benefits as ecosystem services. The proposed scientific tools will generate guidelines and best management practices with the aim of improving the GUS quality and quantity as well as the current management practices. To address the aforementioned challenges, the objectives of the project are:• to perform a SWOT analysis of GUS typologies with respect to the urban water cycle components, including biophysical, structural and social factors;• to introduce a new dynamical ecohydrological model coupling the dynamics of water, vegetation, energy and nutrients in an urban environment with the stochastic components, thresholds and nonlinearities associated to unpredictability of the hydrological drivers and to the stronger human feedbacks on the hydrosphere and ecosystems; • to frame the problem of urban water management in GUS management using the theory of optimal stochastic control;• to define new guidelines for GUS management;• to lay the foundations of the first EU research group in urban ecohydrology.ECO.G.U.S. project represents one of the first applications of the stochastic ecohydrological approach and the optimal stochastic control to an urban context. The cooperation between high-level institutions (POLITO and DUKE) will help EU and US urban regions to better deal with the shocks and bombshells that will result from climate changes in the next futur |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/701914 |
Urban water' |
| projects-290 |
698201 |
Hydrolowhead |
PROFITABLE LOW HEAD HYROPOWER |
H2020 |
H2020-SMEInst-2014-2015 |
SIE-01-2015 |
2015-11-01 |
2017-10-31 |
Completed |
€ 001 512 892.50 |
Water is one of the basic and essential human needs for almost all economic activities. The water management sector is facing global challenges that require multi-sector solutions. Small hydro energy plays a key role in power generation worldwide, but installing conventional turbines at a micro level is currently not very attractive because of the large initial investment and their low efficiency. Our “regenerative variable speed control system” works at variable speed. The installation time is between 1 and 2 days, reducing civil works by 80%. The pay back for the final clients (Mini-hydroelectric plants, Aquaculture Companies, Wastewater treatment plants) is 4 years. Our overall goal is to improve, integrate, implement and certify our current product. The final product will be capable of generating the maximum amount of electricity with a constant efficiency (75%) and will be further used as demonstrator plant for our customers worldwide. We have already completed the following feasibility actions: technological feasibility, work plan for Phase II and an assessment of the market, business model, risks, IP and created a Business Plan. By 2020,small hydro power (SHP) is forecasted to produce 60 TWh per year in Europe with an installed capacity of 17.3 GW. This represents a potential SHP market of over € 6.35 million. Hence the importance to develop new technologies, to enhance existing plants and to build new ones. At Tecnoturbines and Sendekia, we see this as a challenging market opportunity, where our privileged strategic position will give us a competitive advantage to contribute to the expected growth of SHP and to position the SHP as one of the most profitable forms of energy. Based solely on the product validated in this project, we expect that we can increase our turnover significantly by 2020. This is based on our assumption that we can gain a 0.009% market share of the worldwide SHP by 2017 and to expand to 0.04 % by 2020. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/698201 |
Rivers and estuaries', 'Urban water' |
