| projects-071 |
730109 |
DIANA |
Detection and Integrated Assessment of Non-authorised water Abstractions using EO |
H2020 |
H2020-EO-2016 |
EO-1-2016 |
2017-01-01 |
2019-12-31 |
Completed |
⏠002 478 968.75 |
DIANA is aimed at co-designing and openly demonstrating a commercial service platform that will empower water managers and authorities to optimise the identification and inspection of non-authorised water abstractions for irrigation as well as improve their water management policies and practices, especially in extreme conditions such as drought. DIANA will leverage EO data provided by Copernicus and other data sources as well as state-of-the-art models for the identification of (illegally) irrigated areas and the estimation of abstracted water volumes in order to offer a value added suite of data products and services, that will be affordable and cost-effective. The value propositions of DIANA will be co-created and defined along with users and stakeholders so as to be shaped according to their needs and requirements. Three pilots will be deployed in order to put them to the test in real operational environments of Spain, Italy and Romania. All pilots will be integrated with the work flows of the users and their results will be co-evaluated and validated with them through a multi-layer methodology, fostering the acceptance of DIANA as a marketable solution. In order to ensure the demand-driven design of the DIANA service platform as well as set the stage for its market launch and uptake following the end of the project, a customer-driven business modelling process will be followed during the project, validating its business case and producing an effective business plan to serve as the roadmap for its post-project commercialization. Finally, DIANA is implemented by a transnational and well-balanced consortium, consisting of innovative SMEs and pioneering authorities, all of which possess the complementary expertise as well as the motivation and commitment required to ensure not only the creation of meaningful project outcomes but also their successful commercial exploitation and sustainability. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/730109 |
Urban water', 'Groundwater' |
| projects-072 |
675120 |
INSPIRATION |
Managing soil and groundwater impacts from agriculture for sustainable intensification |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015 |
MSCA-ITN-2015-ETN |
2016-04-01 |
2020-03-31 |
Completed |
⏠003 659 161.29 |
"Agricultural production in Europe has significantly damaged soil and water resources, ecosystem biodiversity, socio-economic well-being and contributed to climate change. Expected further intensification of production to ensure food safety for population growth must be sustainable to minimise future impacts and negative externalities. This ETN addresses these challenges by training 15 early stage researchers in cutting edge research skills and innovative approaches to manage soil and groundwater impacts from agriculture for sustainable intensification. It supports EU policy goals on food security, resource conservation, renewable energy and climate change, and the aims of the H2020 Societal Challenge 5 Work Programme for sustainable management of the environment and its resources. The scientific objectives focus on developing (1) management techniques which mitigate environmental impacts of agricultural practices on soil, water and climate systems, and support sustainable intensification using new production methods; (2) ""smart"" environmental monitoring, biotechnology and modelling tools to predict the outcome of measures and practices in (1); (3) decision-making tools with sustainability indicators to implement sustainable agricultural production methods. This will be achieved by linking lab-scale studies of processes with field-scale evaluation of novel management concepts, analytical tools and modelling, using state-of-the-art methods. The network includes research, advisory and commercial organisations from all sectors of the agri-environmental management community, and SMEs to multinational firms. Its novel training agenda of workshops and summer schools on technical and business skills, international conferences, industry secondments and knowledge transfer activities has the specific aim of transferable skills training. This is highly relevant for scientific communication, societal impact and entrepreneurship, preparing the fellows for careers in many sectors." |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/675120 |
Groundwater' |
| projects-073 |
869226 |
DRYvER |
Securing biodiversity, functional integrity and ecosystem services in DRYing rivER networks |
H2020 |
H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020 |
LC-CLA-06-2019 |
2020-09-01 |
2025-02-28 |
On going |
⏠006 702 008.75 |
River networks are among Earthâs most threatened hot-spots of biodiversity and provide key ecosystem services (e.g. supply drinking water and food, climate regulation) essential to sustaining human well-being. Climate change and increased human water use are causing more rivers and streams to dry, with devastating impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Currently, over half the global river network consist of drying channels and these are expanding dramatically. However, drying river networks (DRNs) have received little attention from scientists and policy makers, and the public is unaware of their importance. Consequently, there is no effective integrated biodiversity conservation or ecosystem management strategy of DRNs facing climate change. A multidisciplinary team of 25 experts from 11 countries in Europe, South America, China and the USA will build on EU efforts to investigate how climate change, through changes in flow regimes and water use, has cascading impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services of DRNs. DRYvER (DRYing riVER networks) will gather and upscale empirical and modelling data from nine focal DRNs (case studies) in the EU and CELAC to develop a meta-system framework applicable to Europe and worldwide. It will also generate crucial knowledge-based strategies, tools and guidelines for cost-effective adaptive management of DRNs. Working closely with stakeholders and end-users, DRYvER will co-develop strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change effects in DRNs, integrating hydrological, ecological (including nature-based solutions), socio-economic and policy perspectives. The end results of DRYvER will contribute to reaching the objectives of the Paris Agreement and place Europe at the forefront of research on climate change. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/869226 |
Rivers and estuaries' |
| projects-074 |
101031043 |
DARKEST |
Dark Estuaries: Mapping coastal aquifer biodiversity in a changing world |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2020 |
MSCA-IF-2020 |
2021-12-01 |
2023-11-30 |
Completed |
⏠000 183 473.28 |
Subterranean estuaries extend inland into coastal aquifers inhabited by a surprising diversity of subterranean animals with peculiar ecological and evolutionary features. How complex ecosystems thrive in this globally distributed habitat in different hydrological and geological settings is poorly understood. This study aims to integrate a novel global database of subterranean fauna with existing geochemical data and high-resolution hydrogeology maps of the worldâs aquifers, using modern statistical and modelling methods, to achieve an integrated understanding of the drivers of biodiversity in coastal aquifers and their response to global environmental change. Indeed, coastal aquifers connect the worldâs oceanic and hydrologic ecosystems and provide water source for more than one billion people in coastal regions, but these habitats are among those most prone to the long-term effects of climate change and human population growth. Therefore, expected outcomes of the study will contribute to the increasing efforts to discover, describe, and sustain groundwater-dependent ecosystems and to identify biological communities that could serve as indicators of the health of groundwater resources. To achieve these goals, a holistic approach is proposed that bridges scientific disciplines across ecology and geosciences. The project also targets to build the foundation for my long-term plans, that is, to reintegrate in Europe and establish myself as a leading expert in the emerging field of Earth System Ecology. Ensuring success, I will be supervised by host Diego Fontaneto, an expert in ecology, evolution, and large-scale patterns of biodiversity of microscopic animals at the Water Research Institute of CNR in Italy. Moreover, I will benefit from interactions with secondment-host Nils Moosdorf, who has expertise in aquifer hydrogeology, data-driven geoscience, and mega-scale hydrological modelling, at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research in Germany. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101031043 |
Coastal waters', 'Groundwater' |
| projects-075 |
697140 |
VIGI-LEAK |
A Smart Technology Trained for Preventing Leakages from Sewer Systems |
H2020 |
H2020-SMEInst-2014-2015 |
DRS-17-2015-1 |
2015-11-01 |
2016-01-31 |
Completed |
⏠000 071 429.00 |
"R.Z.E.E. has a 25 years experience in sewerage system monitoring, wastewater treatment and remediation activities, providing since 2004 more than 95% of short term sewer flowrate monitoring services in Israel.Monitoring is essential to evaluate the status of sewerage system and localize leakages to prioritize repair work. Despite some promising approaches, still no proven method of leakages and exfiltration measurement on a wider scale is available so authorities and companies are not aware of its impact on groundwater pollution.Indirect measuring methods as groundwater sampling or modelling, are mostly too complicated for sewer operators to apply. Direct procedures yield exfiltration rates for single leaks, but the extrapolation to overall exfiltration rates is questionable due to the inhomogeneity of defects.Our technology is based on an ongoing monitoring plan to anticipate the consequences of leakages. With the ambition of reducing the amount of Contaminants of Emerging Concern that can cause harm to the environment and human populations, and based on practical experience acquired through the Western Galilee Incident where R.Z.E.E. professionals detected an alarmant percentage of leakages (20%), we developed and patented an unique technology, âAny Geometry Flumeâ, a system adapted to measure gravitational flows in a simple, precise and relatively inexpensive way.With the development of VIGI-LEAK, we aim to complement our technology with a highly precise real-time flow measurement software. VIGI-LEAK is a correlation system located in the ""internet cloud"" to monitor sewage systems and alert if there is a fault or malfunction in some segment, calculating the magnitude of the leakage. It will release sewer operators from being dependant on expensive flow data delivery services providers, representing a powerful tool for engineers and decision makers. The commercialization of VIGI-LEAK will allow R.Z.E.E. to increase our turnover in âŹ4M in 5 years." |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/697140 |
Urban water', 'Groundwater' |
| projects-076 |
748969 |
SHYDRO-ALP |
Quantifying ecological effects of small hydropower in Alpine stream ecosystems |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 |
MSCA-IF-2016 |
2017-05-01 |
2019-04-30 |
Completed |
⏠000 180 277.20 |
In Europe, hydropower is the largest renewable energy resource accounting for 16% of total production, most of which is concentrated in the Alpine region. However, this renewable energy comes at great environmental costs and development of large dams is now considered untenable in many Countries. While studies addressing the ecological implications of hydropower have mostly focused on large facilities, investigations on small hydropower (SHP) are scarcer. Yet, development of SHP is booming globally and in the Alps rising concerns about cumulative effects on riverine systems.This project proposes a multi-disciplinary investigation to better quantify hydrological alterations from SHP and its effects on Alpine stream ecosystems. Combining field-experiments, surveys and innovative modelling of existing flow data-series, the project will: i) quantify the spatio-temporal scales of hydrologic alterations associated with SHP using integrated analytical tools and modelling approaches applied to long-term, spatially distributed data; ii) experimentally mimic water abstractions from SHP using semi-natural flumes to assess the response of aquatic invertebrates and the link between community assembly and ecosystem function applying the Price Equation partition; iii) quantify flow-ecology relationships and the cumulative effects of multiple SHPs using novel functional regression models with streams hydrographs. The results will provide new insights into the short- and long-term effects of SHP on Alpine streams, with practical implication for the sustainable use of water resources.During the project, I will train intensively in methods and software to quantify and model alterations of river flow and habitat and in handling large datasets. I will exchange knowledge with modellers, engineers and freshwater ecologists and foster new collaborations, which will benefit my host organisation and myself. The fellowship will also allow me to return to my homeland after a decade. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/748969 |
Rivers and estuaries' |
| projects-077 |
722518 |
MANTEL |
Management of Climatic Extreme Events in Lakes Reservoirs for the Protection of Ecosystem Services |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-ITN-2016 |
MSCA-ITN-2016 |
2017-01-01 |
2021-06-30 |
Completed |
⏠003 056 654.16 |
Environmental perturbations to lakes and reservoirs occur largely as episodic climatic events. These range from relatively short mixing events to storms and heat waves. While the driving events occur along a continuum of frequency and magnitude, however, their effect is generally longer lasting than the events themselves. In addition, the more extreme weather events are now becoming increasingly frequent, a trend that has been linked to directional climate change and is projected to continue in the coming decades. Understanding the impact of these short-lived pressures requires monitoring that captures the event (hoursâdays) and the ensuing impact, that can last for months or even years. Only recently has automated high frequency monitoring (HFM) of lakes been adopted throughout Europe. This Training Network will investigate the effects of the most extreme events, and of cumulative lower magnitude events, using HFM, while at the same time training a cohort of doctoral students in state-of-the art technology, data analysis and modelling. The aim of the EJD is to change the way in which water quality monitoring is carried out so that the effects of episodic climatic events can be understood, thus ensuring that future water management strategies can explicitly account for their effects. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/722518 |
Lake', 'Water reservoir' |
| projects-078 |
747848 |
ProbSenS |
Probabilistic neuromorphic architecture for real-time Sensor fusion applied to Smart, water quality monitoring systems |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 |
MSCA-IF-2016 |
2017-09-01 |
2019-08-31 |
Completed |
⏠000 175 419.60 |
âProbSenSâ will develop a novel low-power event-driven probabilistic Very Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) architecture for real-time, adaptive and robust multisensor integration. Multisensor integration exploits the extended coverage of multiple detectors to increase perceptual confidence in Smart Systems, but embedded implementations are yet in their infancy due to the lack of hardware able to infer from the multivariate, nonlinear, time-dependent and noisy signals supplied by modern sensors. By using principles of how biological systems promptly combine multisensory information and generate meaningful features in dynamic and uncontrolled real-world conditions, bioinspired Generative Deep Neural Network (GDNN) models are emerging as a powerful, CMOS-amenable computing paradigm to accelerate sensor fusion and enable quick, reliable self-learning and context-awareness under these constraints.This project aims to develop such technology into a smaller, smarter, calibration-free multisensor solution, tolerant to sensor drifts and suited to process low-latency data from a varied set of solid-state transducers in critical real-world monitoring/diagnosis scenarios where information is acquired on-line and mostly unlabelled, e.g. security, health and environmental care. âProbSenSâ will broaden state-of-the-art insight in the following multidisciplinary areas: (i) The modelling of GDNNs as probabilistic processors for adaptive event-based sensor fusion in Smart Systems; (ii) the investigation of novel ultra-low-power VLSI circuits to realise their computational units in low-cost CMOS technologies; (iii) the yet unexplored event-driven fusion of electrochemical and optical microsensors using a GDNN; and (iv) the benchmark of this technology in a true EU societal challenge: the real-time monitoring of water pollutants. The final outcome will be a functional working prototype of the GDNN validated in the field together with Agbar, the largest water management company in Spain. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/747848 |
Urban water' |
| projects-079 |
948290 |
FRAGILE |
Next generation framework for global glacier forecasting |
H2020 |
ERC-2020-STG |
ERC-2020-STG |
2021-02-01 |
2026-01-31 |
On going |
⏠001 499 950.00 |
Worldwide glacier retreat outside the two large ice sheets is increasingly tangible and the associated ice-loss has dominated the cryospheric contribution to sea-level change for many decades. This retreat has also become symbolic for the effects of the generally warming climate. Despite the anticipated importance for future sea-level rise, continuing glacier retreat will affect seasonal freshwater availability and might add to regional water-stress in this century. Here, I envision a novel self-consistent, ice-dynamic forecasting framework for global glacier evolution that will lift the confidence in forward projections for this century to new heights. For the first time, each glacier on Earth will be treated as a three-dimension body within its surrounding topography without using any form of geometric simplification. The heart of the framework is the systematic utilisation of the rapidly growing body of information from satellite remote sensing. For this purpose, I intend to pass on to ensemble assimilation techniques that transiently consider measurements as they become available. This will streamline and increase the total information flow into glacier models. In terms of climatic forcing, global products will be replaced by regional forecasts with high-resolution climate models. Moreover, a more realistic representation of the local energy balance at the glacier surface is pursued that ensures multi-decadal stability in the melt formulation. The envisaged 3D finite-element modelling framework also allows a direct integration of iceberg calving, which is, on global scales, an often-unconsidered dynamic ice-loss term. To this day, a key limitation of glacier projections is the poorly constrained ice volume and its distribution at present. Here, I put forward a promising remedy that builds on multi-temporal satellite information to calibrate a state-of-the-art reconstruction approach for mapping basin-wide ice thickness on virtually any glacier. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/948290 |
Snow and ice' |
| projects-080 |
843753 |
IceMelt3D |
Tracking 3-D meltwater production and runoff from glacial bare-ice surfaces |
H2020 |
H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 |
MSCA-IF-2018 |
2020-02-01 |
2023-01-31 |
Completed |
⏠000 235 191.36 |
IceMelt3D will track the production and fate of surface meltwater in glacial bare-ice areas to improve the skill of Surface Mass Balance (SMB) models in predicting melt and runoff from these locations of major ice loss. In these areas a porous, low-density âweathering crustâ (WC) often develops, which causes sub-surface melting and dramatically changes the surface albedo and hence melt rates, invoking a feedback loop. However, SMB models lack fundamental constraints on the production and fate of meltwater in bare-ice areas. IceMelt3D will focus on numerically quantifying ablation area processes, using the Queen Elizabeth Islands (QEI), Canada as a case study. The Action will develop the Regional Climate Model (RCM) âMARâ for SMB reconstruction of the QEI ice caps. The Action objectives are: (O1) Resolve WC dynamics by simultaneous field measurements of surface energy balance, albedo, melt rates and WC properties in a hydrologically-gauged supraglacial catchment on Sverdrup Glacier, Devon Ice Cap, QEI. (O2) Develop and validate a numerical, vertically-resolved model of WC dynamics linked with a new surface albedo model. (O3) Up-scale the hydrology of supraglacial drainage catchments using remotely-sensed measurements calibrated with in-situ measurements. (O4) Implement the WC-albedo model within the surface scheme of MAR. (O5) Use MAR to reconstruct the SMB of the QEI ice fields, and validate the outputs. These objectives are linked under a unified framework of ablation processes that comprises WC structural properties, albedo, surface energy balance, light-absorbing impurities and hydrology. Only with simultaneous, numerical engagement across the framework will the full impact of ablation zone processes on runoff be captured. The Action will train the researcher in High Arctic glaciological fieldwork, numerical modelling and regional climate modelling, and will enable two-way transfer of knowledge between Canada and Europe on QEI SMB observations and modelling. |
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/843753 |
Snow and ice' |
