[MEDISS] Water resources in the spotlight. Sharing and imagining university partnerships and further advancements in the water policy sector.
Linking MEDISS to other cooperation projects is a clear capitalization opportunity. Projects sharing same purposes and aims can help undertaking actions together even after project conclusion.
MEDISS is part of a wider pool of projects elaborated in the Mediterranean area that deal with water efficiency. In order to speed up spill-over effects, CRENoS, responsible for the capitalization strategy, is working to identify relevant projects to ensure the dissemination and capitalization of the knowledge accumulated and classified under MEDISS.
Apart from information activities, we aim to intercept subjects that are most likely to be interested in what has been produced so far by MEDISS projects and that, on the basis of their respective competences and fields of activity, can:
- replicate, with the necessary adaptations, what has been achieved by MEDISS in another territorial area;
- transfer the know-how acquired, often through pilot experiments, to a larger scale or at a more general level;
- re-using project outputs by updating them, increasing their effectiveness, and producing additional results.
Each year CRENoS team has been an active participant in the Researchers' Night – Sharper Night of the University of Cagliari, an ideal space for identifying opportunities for research collaboration, disseminating achievements, and supporting the capitalization of knowledge produced by MEDISS.
The European Researchers’ Night – Sharper Night within the framework of Horizon2020 is a Europe-wide public programme of events to raise the awareness on science careers and the enhance the public recognition of researchers in general.
The Researchers' Night is an initiative promoted by the European Commission since 2005, involving thousands of researchers and research institutions in all European countries every year. The goal is to create meeting opportunities between the world of research and the public to spread scientific culture and knowledge of the research professions in an informal and stimulating context. Events include live science experiments and demonstrations, exhibitions and guided tours, educational lectures and seminars, shows and concerts.
During 2022 Sharper Night, we animated a Speaker Corner on water issues with colleagues from the University of Cagliari. What made us enter into a collaborative agreement to disseminate and capitalize on the results of our projects? Here are our reasons, we are sure you will agree with us!
- The projects are developing indicators to assess and monitor environmental, social, and economic performance of water systems.
- Strong emphasis on participatory approaches and inclusive stakeholder engagement is a common need. The participating researchers collaborate with regional and local authorities, water user representatives, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to co-create future scenarios and water management pathways.
- By streamlining water planning at different levels, we all want to ensure that water allocation among societies, economies, and ecosystems will be economically efficient, socially fair, and resilient to shocks.
Who are our new allies?
The SWATCH project - Strategies for increasing the water use efficiency of semi-arid Mediterranean watersheds and agrosilvopastoral systems under climate change
The project aims to develop innovative methodologies to increase the social-ecological Water Use Efficiency of managed ecosystems along the Mediterranean biome and climate types in the face of drier and more extreme climates.
It relies on 9 study sites (3 in Sardinia - Italy, 1 in Algeria, 1 in Cyprus, 2 in Tunisia, 1 in France, and 1 in Egypt), which cover a wide range of spatial scales, climates, and ecosystems. SWATCH activities follow seven interconnected work packages, including WP1 on management and WP7 on dissemination and communication.
WP2 monitors experimental fields and hydrological basins. It addresses innovative methodologies for EvapoTranspiration (ET) measurements in typical heterogeneous Mediterranean agrosilvopastoral systems and agricultural environments. It includes innovative eco-hydrologic monitoring approaches in ephemeral rivers and wadis along the Mediterranean biome and climate types, establishing a transnational Mediterranean river monitoring system.
WP3 focuses on Ecohydrological modeling. It uses outcomes from WP2 to address innovative ecohydrological models at several spatial scales. Models will be calibrated for each case study, comparing observed and simulated time series for different parameters.
WP4 includes satellite imagining and the development of data assimilation systems for assimilating remotely sensed and field data into ecohydrological models at the watershed or agricultural district scales for optimal characterization of soil water balances and the underlying water use efficiency.
WP5 includes the development of land cover change strategies under actual and future climate change scenarios for optimizing the use of water resources.
WP6 develops and improves water management and planning for water infrastructures and uses.
The SWATCH project is financed under PRIMA Programme, supported by Horizon 2020, the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
MONITOOL PROJECT - New tools for monitoring the chemical status in transitional and coastal waters under the EU Water Framework Directive
The MONITOOL project features the participation of 8 institutions from 6 different countries. The project consortium is carrying out a study on passive sampling methods in European coastal and transitional waters that would enable bettering monitoring of the chemical status of these waters.
The main driver of MONITOOL is responding to European Water Framework Directive (WFD) demands and assessing the chemical status of transitional and coastal waters, allowing the use of passive sampling devices in a regulatory context and enhancing the implementation of the EU WFD.
The MONITOOL project seeks to provide a robust database on dissolved and labile metal concentrations in coastal and transitional waters to adapt current Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) to enable the use of passive Diffusive Gradients in Thin-films (DGT ©)1 samplers. It would improve and facilitate the assessment of the chemical status of water under the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which regulates the uses and protection of water at the European level.
Passive sampling techniques constitute a promising tool for compliance with the WFD. Since they are continuous sampling methods, they have several advantages. They provide a more representative sampling of water bodies, and the metals are concentrated in the DGTs, facilitating the analysis, eliminating the problems associated with the salt matrix, and, in addition, the determined metal forms are those causing toxicity.
MONITOOLS operates across the Atlantic region in Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom. Outside the Atlantic region, the Universitá degli Studi di Cagliari (UNICA) in Sardinia (Italy) provides samples from Mediterranean waters.
MONITOOL is co-funded by Interreg Atlantic Area Transnational Cooperation Programme 2014-2020 during a six-year project duration: July 2017- June 2023.
1: The DGT passive sampler is an inexpensive plastic device, which can be deployed directly in waters, sediments, and soils. The plastic housing holds a membrane filter, a diffusive gel layer, and a binding gel layer.