European Fundend Projects

This catalogue collects metadata from outputs of past and ongoing research and innovation projects related to inland water monitoring and management, as well as digital twins and associated aspects. These projects have been funded by the European Union and other entities.

ID â–˛ fiwar Project_Acronym Project_Name Funding Authority Call for proposals Focus Area Begin Date End Date Status Budget Description Resource Inland water types
projects-051 301268 MODISC Modelling glacier response after Larsen B ice shelf collapse FP7 No data FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF 2013-03-01 2015-08-28 Completed € 000 200 371.80 This project aims to improve our understanding of glacier and ice sheet dynamics in a warming climate, leading to a better forecast reliability for future sea level rise. The main objective is to provide more accurate estimates for the loss of grounded ice in the Antarctic Peninsula, caused by the melting and collapse of its ice shelves over the last decades. Increased losses of grounded ice have been observed at several places, in particular for the Larsen B Embayment glaciers which sped up and thinned after the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002. In order to reduce the present uncertainty in Antarctic contribution to sea level rise, it is of the utmost importance to better understand the dynamics of such coupled glacier/ice shelf systems. This project will investigate this dynamics using a combination of improved datasets and improved numerical modelling techniques, available at the British Antarctic Survey. It will be the first ever attempt to simulate glacier response to ice shelf collapse beyond the flow-line approximation, providing a significant structural improvement towards more realistic simulations of such events. A comprehensive study of the Larsen B Embayment will be used to test the model, and numerical experiments will be performed to simulate similar events in the future. A prime study area will be the Flask and Leppard glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula, which feed the vulnerable Scar Inlet, and which are closely monitored by the British Antarctic Survey. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/301268 Snow and ice'
projects-052 607131 FAST Foreshore Assessment using Space Technology FP7 No data SPA.2013.1.1-06 2014-01-01 2017-12-31 Completed € 002 796 545.44 Marine foreshores are currently not included in water safety assessments and in levee design. River floodplains are only managed to maximize river discharge capacity. However, foreshores and floodplains deliver several services, such as increasing sedimentation, reducing erosion and attenuating waves that mitigate flood risk by improving levee stability and lifetime. Including foreshores and floodplains in levee design and safety assessments can result in considerable cost reductions for flood risk management. The FAST (Foreshore Assessment using Space Technology) project aims to develop a new GMES/Copernicus downstream service by developing products based on Sentinel data to gain spatial information on foreshore and floodplain characteristics, such as morphology, sediment characteristics and vegetation properties. Necessary ground referencing in combination with measurements on wave attenuation and erosion/deposition regimes will be executed at eight characteristic case-study sites across Europe (Spain, Romania, United Kingdom and the Netherlands). From the collected data general relationships between foreshore and floodplain characteristics and flood risk mitigation properties will be derived and implemented in a GIS based software package. Software calculates effects of foreshores and floodplains on hydraulic conditions derived from either satellite images or engineering manuals. Effects of foreshores and floodplains on wave impact and bed stability are translated to potential reduction in levee width and crest height. Software will be developed in close contact with various end-user groups to ensure commercial uptake and long-term continuation of services. In this way, FAST provides the first standardised tool for integrating levee-landscape interaction into cost efficient and safe flood risk management strategies. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/607131 Rivers and estuaries', 'Coastal waters'
projects-053 820985 NAIADES A holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector H2020 H2020-SC5-2018-2019-2020 SC5-11-2018 2019-06-01 2022-11-30 Completed € 005 683 253.75 NAIADES Ecosystem envisions transforming water sector through automated and smarter water resource management and environmental monitoring, achieving a high level of water services in both residential or commercial consumers, exploiting the efficient use of physical and digital components of water ecosystem. NAIADES will apply in various situations on diverse big data in terms of sources, data types, and entities represented that is collected by such water monitoring and control systems in Europe, including (i) the water consumption in both retail and corporation efficiency, (ii) the confidence of water consumers (including special groups as ageing, disabled persons and children), by measuring the water quality in residential buildings, offices and public infrastructures (mall, hospital), (iii) the safety and reliability through the detection of warning signs from equipment failures and maintenance report, and (iv) personalized persuasive feedback and recommendation services provided to the NAIADES App Users aiming to enhance public awareness on water consumption and usage savings, and promote user engagement in water conservation activities. NAIADES AI elements, aim to provide multidimensional intelligence on the water ecosystem by introducing: Situational Intelligence - by collecting real-time data from the buildings as they are in operation and analysing it in three different dimensions; Spatial, Temporal and Nodal; Operational intelligence - by using the power of data and its capability to extract the right information at the right time to provide insight into water infrastructure operation and improve the effectiveness of maintenance activities; Asset intelligence: the continuous data streams produced from various sub-systems in buildings will help OEMs build digital twins that represent physical systems in real-time. NAIADES ecosystem will be validated and demostrated in three heterogeneous pilot sites. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/820985 Urban water'
projects-054 886525 StormTre Rethink, reduce, reuse urban stormwater: removal of trace organic contaminants before groundwater recharge H2020 H2020-MSCA-IF-2019 MSCA-IF-2019 2022-03-01 2024-09-30 Completed € 000 252 802.40 The development of water-smart cities is one of the societal challenges of the EU. Urban water management is facing many challenges: urbanization, climate variability and water stress. Innovative solutions are required, such as urban stormwater reuse to enhance groundwater supplies. Stormwater contaminated with various substances could threaten valuable groundwater resources. Polar trace organic chemicals (TOrC) are of emerging concern as they are highly mobile in soil and data on the contamination risks are still scarce. Thus, a precautionary treatment is essential to improve stormwater quality prior to groundwater recharge. The StormTre project assesses the risks associated with TOrC in stormwater and their control with emerging, low-cost biochar systems. The project will be achieved through three tasks: i) field monitoring and risk assessment of TOrCs, ii) laboratory based treatment tests for challenging conditions, and iii) development of a forecasting model. The results will quantify the unknown risk associated with TOrC in stormwater – an important knowledge gap for stormwater reuse. The project will lead to design and operation recommendations for safe groundwater recharge. Hosted at Stanford University in the outgoing phase, Dr. Lena Mutzner (LM) will study water reuse systems in a stimulating environment, where water scarcity drives innovation towards water-smart cities. LM will enhance her skills in chemical analysis and deepen her knowledge in contaminant occurrence and treatment. In the return phase at Newcastle University, LM will be integrated in UK’s outdoor National Green Infrastructure Laboratory team, where she will be trained in microbial analysis and complement her scientific profile with biological process modelling knowledge. The unique combination of multi-disciplinary expertise gained will significantly enhance her career prospective towards building her own research group in the field of water quality and water reuse. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/886525 Urban water', 'Groundwater'
projects-055 101019185 GEOWAT A Global Assessment of the Limits of Groundwater Use H2020 ERC-2020-ADG ERC-2020-ADG 2021-09-01 2026-08-31 On going € 002 500 000.00 Population growth and economic development have dramatically increased the demand for food and water. The resulting expansion of agriculture into areas with limited precipitation and surface water has greatly increased the reliance on groundwater irrigation. Further, urban groundwater use has risen exponentially to meet the ever-increasing population growth of mega-cities. These trends have resulted in a dramatic rise in groundwater pumping and associated high rates of aquifer depletion around the globe. The depletion of our world’s aquifers is unsustainable and will eventually impact the food security of future generations. Also, groundwater depletion results in severe environmental impacts such as land subsidence, groundwater salinisation, and damage to groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Despite decades of research on groundwater overuse, knowledge on attainable groundwater reserves and the critical time horizons of their depletion is completely lacking. In GEOWAT, I propose to take the giant leap to extractable volumes and depletion horizons by answering the obvious question that has been avoided thus far: How much groundwater is there and how long will it last? To this end, my research team will build the first high-resolution global groundwater model supported with a 3D-mapping of the world’s aquifers. We will use these unique modelling tools, in combination with dedicated case studies, to assess, for the first time, the global volume of physically and economically extractable fresh groundwater, and determine the time to physical and economic depletion under future pumping. We will also provide the first global assessment of the effects of groundwater pumping on groundwater-dependent ecosystems and explore pathways to sustainable groundwater use. As such, GEOWAT will provide critically-needed new knowledge to address one of most pressing challenges that mankind will face: how to sustainably manage the freshwater resources needed to survive on this planet? https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101019185 Groundwater'
projects-056 820751 SCOREwater Smart City Observatories implement REsilient Water Management H2020 H2020-SC5-2018-2019-2020 SC5-11-2018 2019-05-01 2023-04-30 Completed € 005 787 787.50 SCOREwater focuses on enhancing the resilience of cities against climate change and urbanization by enabling a water smart society that fulfils SDGs 3, 6, 11, 12 and 13 and secures future ecosystem services. We introduce digital services to improve management of wastewater, stormwater and flooding events. These services are provided by an adaptive digital platform, developed and verified by relevant stakeholders (communities, municipalities, businesses, and civil society) in iterative collaboration with developers, thus tailoring to stakeholders’ needs. Existing technical platforms and services (e.g. FIWARE, CKAN) are extended to the water domain by integrating relevant standards, ontologies and vocabularies, and provide an interoperable open-source platform for smart water management. Emerging digital technologies such as IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data are used to provide accurate real-time predictions and refined information. We implement three large-scale, cross-cutting innovation demonstrators and enable transfer and upscale by providing harmonized data and services. We initiate a new domain “sewage sociology” mining biomarkers of community-wide lifestyle habits from sewage. We develop new water monitoring techniques and data-adaptive storm water treatment and apply to water resource protection and legal compliance for construction projects. We enhance resilience against flooding by sensing and hydrological modelling coupled to urban water engineering. We will identify best practices for developing and using the digital services, thus addressing water stakeholders beyond the project partners. The project will also develop technologies to increase public engagement in water management. Moreover, SCOREwater will deliver an innovation ecosystem driven by the financial savings in both maintenance and operation of water systems that are offered using the SCOREwater digital services, providing new business opportunities for water and ICT SMEs. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/820751 Urban water'
projects-057 642224 FREEWAT FREE and open source software tools for WATer resource management H2020 H2020-WATER-2014-2015 WATER-4a-2014 2015-04-01 2017-09-30 Completed € 001 583 912.50 "FREEWAT aims at promoting water management and planning by simplifying the application of the Water Framework Directive and other EU water related Directives. FREEWAT will be an open source and public domain GIS integrated modelling environment for the simulation of water quantity and quality in surface water and groundwater with an integrated water management and planning module.Specific objectives of the FREEWAT project are:- to coordinate previous EU and national funded research to integrate existing software modules for water management in a single environment into the GIS based FREEWAT;- to support the FREEWAT application in an innovative participatory approach gathering technical staff and relevant stakeholders (in primis policy and decision makers) in designing scenarios for the proper application of water policies.FREEWAT will initiate a process aimed at filling the gap between EU and US on widespread-standardised ICT tools and models for management of water quantity and quality and will set a well recognisable and flagship initiative. The open source characteristics of the platform allow to consider this an initiative ""ad includendum"" (looking for inclusion of other entities), as further research institutions, private developers etc. may contribute to the platform development.Through creating a common environment among water research/professionals, policy makers and implementers, FREEWAT main impact will be on enhancing science- and participatory approach and evidence-based decision making in water resource management, hence producing relevant and appropriate outcomes for policy implementation.The Consortium is constituted by partners from various water sectors from 11 EU countries, plus Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine. Synergies with the UNESCO HOPE initiative on free and open source software in water management greatly boost the value of the project. Large stakeholders involvement guarantees results dissemination and exploitation." https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/642224 Groundwater', 'Urban water'
projects-058 834363 RIPARIONS Transferring hydrological and biogeochemical concepts from boreal to Mediterranean RIPARian zones: developing a broad knowledge framework across ecoregIONS H2020 H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 MSCA-IF-2018 2020-09-01 2022-08-31 Completed € 000 160 932.77 Science-based, sustainable management is needed to preserve the diverse and essential services provided by freshwaters. In natural and semi-natural areas, up to 90% of the total river length is in headwaters (i.e. small streams). Water quality in these “lungs of the landscape” is controlled primarily by soils adjacent to streams, i.e. riparian zones (RZs). Within RZs, the dominant source layer (DSL), a localized hotspot, contributes most of the solute and water fluxes to streams. However, the relative importance of DSL hydrological and biogeochemical processes controlling freshwater quality varies across ecoregions. The overall aim of RIPARIONS is to develop a unified knowledge framework based on DSL hydrological and biogeochemical functions across Europe to predict material transfer from soils to surface waters and consequent effects on water quality. Specifically, RIPARIONS will extend the DSL conceptual model developed in the boreal ecoregion by testing its applicability in two contrasting (sub-humid and a semi-arid) Mediterranean catchments. First, DSLs will be identified via hydrological site characterization using digital elevation models and on-site measurements. Biogeochemical investigations will link DSL processes and stream solute processing to assess stream water quality. Modelling of climate change impacts on DSL position and subsequent effects on future water quality will be assessed. Finally, a synthesis and integration of this work with previous and ongoing work in boreal and temperate sites will create a unified framework predicting RZ function and water quality across European ecoregions based on the DSL concept. While the Water Framework Directive mandates protection of RZs to maintain ecological status of rivers, it does not state how to manage them. RIPARIONS will fill this gap by identifying hotspots of water movement/processing within RZs (i.e. DSLs) that are the most influential for freshwater chemistry, and thus the most in need of protection https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/834363 Rivers and estuaries', 'Wetlands'
projects-059 956623 inventWater Inventive forecasting tools for adapting water quality management to a new climate H2020 H2020-MSCA-ITN-2020 MSCA-ITN-2020 2021-03-01 2025-02-28 On going € 004 021 497.72 Long-term climate change, extreme events, and seasonal variations in weather have profound impacts on water quality of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. This implies a pressing need for tools anticipating the impacts of these environmental changes, and enabling effective water management that safeguards the ecosystem goods and services freshwaters provide. The increasing availability of new meteorological data products and advances in modelling tools now mean that it is possible for the first time to produce reliable forecasts for lake and river water quality on a regional and global scale, an unexploited potential in the water sector. Water managers will therefore profit from the education of a new generation of interdisciplinary trained professionals able to bridge fields such as data science, climate, hydrology, and freshwater ecology, who at the same time develop the necessary skills to translate knowledge and technical novelties into products useful for managers, policy-makers, and the general public. The primary objective of inventWater is to organize a platform providing cutting edge cross disciplinary education of tomorrow's water experts. The core activity is the training program, focused on the development and real-world application of inventive water quality forecasting tools across a range of time-scales, to support fast and reliable decision making as well as long-term adaptation policies. inventWater will bring water quality forecasting to the forefront of the scientific disciplines supporting water managers and policy-makers to design measures for adaptation to a new climate. The composition of the network and the multidisciplinary of the PhD projects will make tools developed by inventWater fellows applicable to a wide range of pressing water quality issues, from local adaptation to increases of climatic extreme events, to supporting adaptation strategies to climate change and achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/956623 Rivers and estuaries', 'Lake', 'Water reservoir'
projects-060 870497 PrimeWater Delivering Advanced Predictive Tools form Medium to Seasonal Range for Water Dependent Industries Exploiting the Cross-Cutting Potential of EO and Hydro-Ecological Modeling H2020 H2020-SPACE-2018-2020 DT-SPACE-06-EO-2019 2019-12-01 2023-05-31 Completed € 002 077 679.99 PrimeWater aims to maximize the potential of the Earth Observation (EO) technologies for the water sector by enhancing and expanding the information base for inland water quality attributes, through advanced physics-based algorithms that integrate multi- and hyper-spectral imagery from satellite, airborne and ground-based sensors, increasing the situational intelligence of water regulators, emergency planners, water-related industry professionals and local communities. PrimeWater aspires to further add value to EO data and other Copernicus sectoral services through cross-cutting research with Data Assimilation (DA) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques aiming at improving the skill of hydro-ecological forecasts and their related impact at different spatial scales and time horizons, and hence improve preparedness against water hazards and enhance the capacity of decision-making through uncertainty information.PrimeWater will establish a complete value chain linking science with the water business sector, ensuring the co-development of products and services through continuous and efficient interaction and communication with water professionals across the globe and in-depth analysis of the intrinsic barriers for the wide market uptake of EO-enabled services in the water sector. As a result PrimeWater will deliver water intelligent services that capitalize on advanced EO data products and intersections with other data sources, will build on cause-effect analyses through diagnostic modelling tools, and will utilize predictive and prescriptive calculations by integrating forecasting capabilities with planning and scenario analysis. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/870497 Urban water'