project presentation
Innovative instruments for the integrated management of groundwater in a context of increasing scarcity of water resources
why
In a context of increasing water scarcity, groundwater is an essential resource, yet it is subject to increasing pressure from overexploitation and pollution caused by intensive and growing industrial and agricultural activities.
The international scientific community agrees that groundwater and its many associated ecosystems are under serious threat. Several fields of knowledge need improvement, namely, our knowledge on aquifers, on the implementation of reliable monitoring networks, and about the implication of the public sector in the hydraulic management and that of the end-users in the sustainable management of aquifers.
how ?
Faced with these issues of groundwater quantity and quality, the project Aquifer, a transnational European project (French, Spanish and Portuguese) was launched to capitalise, test, disseminate and transfer innovative practices for the preservation, monitoring and integrated management of aquifers. All this in order to provide support to the decision-making processes on groundwater resources management, to improve the technological transfer towards the local agents, to create new synergies, and to develop common tools in a context of scarcity of hydrological resources and environmental threats. The project aims to implemented 3 main actions:
Step 1 – EXPERIMENTATION
The experimentation about the key elements of “quality” and “quantity” of water through tools such as the management of aquifers recharge and the networks for hydrological monitoring and modelling
Step 2 – INNOVATION
The detection, testing and implementation of innovations by involvment of academics, clusters, stakeholders and start-ups
Step 3 – DISSEMINATION
The creation of a decision support tool and a good practices showcasing. This is the Aquifer platform presented on this website.
who ?
The AQUIFER project is supported by the Interreg Sudoe program through a support of 75% of the costs and it is the result of a collaboration between 9 partners from 3 differents countries: Spain, France and Portugal.
The consortium is build around synergies between partners:
- the academic partners of the project are leaders in scientific research applied to the knowledge of aquifers; in particular, they advise national and regional administrations
- water users are also stakeholders in the project, and provide territorial issues and experimental areas
- water clusters complete this consortium by representing companies and technology centers”