While outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) in Europe used to be rare and geographically contained, the situation has dramatically changed in the last few years with thousands of outbreaks reported in domestic poultry and wild birds. Despite being an intensive field of research, many unknowns remain as we are still struggling to predict HPAIV emergence, avoid viral spread and limit the socio-economic impact entailed predominantly by control measures. Vaccination of domestic poultry against avian influenza, is now being given full consideration, as it is becoming clear that traditional prevention and control approaches alone will not curb the accelerating pace of occurrence of devastating HPAIV epidemics. On 1 October 2023, France became the first EU country to implement a nation-wide vaccination campaign in ducks. However, vaccinating domestic poultry does not come without important challenges. VIVACE therefore aims at putting together a doctoral network to contribute to fully integrate poultry vaccination approaches into efficient management strategies for HPAIV. We will do so by unravelling the impact current and upcoming EU vaccination policies will have on avian influenza virus evolution, surveillance and control strategies and societal burden of HPAI. This will be done through a combination of disciplines from life sciences, epidemiology, computer sciences and social and behavioural sciences. The training program proposed here includes scientific and transferrable skill sessions, builds on the integrated added values of complementing expertise (virology, immunology, modelling, spatial and molecular epidemiology, social psychology, economics and policy), and full access to state-of-the-art technologies in excellent environments. The consortium gathers 15 universities or research institutes and 5 private companies, securing both inter-sectoriality and wide geographic distribution with tailored epidemiological and vaccination contexts.

SAFE will promote positive and practical valorization of reclaimed urban wastewater as a valuable alternative source for agricultural purposes. SAFE will provide a multi-beneficial approach with novel, unconventional and environmental decentralized wastewater solution that will be respectful of environment and biodiversity of the agro-system. SAFE will optimize the proposed water reuse strategies, ensuring their safety (both for environment and human health), their sustainability, adaptation to water scarcity, local conditions, and farms necessities, boosting the local economy. Main specific objectives are: ● Development, test and validation of novel low cost and low energy urban decentralized wastewater treatments aimed at enhanced renewable water supply. ● Evaluation of wastewater treatments impact in plants/crops performance using modern -omics tools. ● Evaluation of local biodiversity and co-benefits. ● Promotion of environment respectful practices like pest management by biofertilizers such as Trichoderma sp., including knowledge transfer for their practical implementation. ● Safety evaluation related to the proposed approaches, including monitoring of emerging pollutants, in water, soil and produced crops. ● Development of general management models able to simulate local and decentralized agro-ecological practices in several scenarios. ● Optimization of implemented approach in terms of techno-economic analysis, environmental impact and local feasibility. ● Local promotion of the proposed solutions both in terms of farmers’ acceptability and valorization of their economic value. SAFE advanced and sustainable wastewater treatment strategies include the use of natural solutions such as constructed wetlands (UM), high rate anaerobic bioreactors (IRSA-CNR), adsorption on natural-based materials (UNIBAS), local biochar (CERTE, FSS) and pillared clays with organic and/or mineral compounds (UDL). Reuse will be ensured by a complete effluent characterization before and after any considered treatment including any parameters required by the present legislation for water reuse and even assessing emerging pollutants (UM, ICRA, CERTE), pathogens (UNIBAS, SAPIENZA, UDL). The reaction path of target compounds in the irrigation system water-soil-plant (CERTE) will be followed at macroscopic scale, focusing mainly on salt, nutrients and biodiversity evolution. In this context, SAFE partners will perform identification of genes and molecular markers (ELGO – Dimitra) linked to yield and boundary condition (such as drought or salt abiotic stresses) and promoting root branching and increasing shoot biomass by Trichoderma species (UNIBAS). An integrated water balance supported by techno-economic analysis (UNIBAS, SAPIENZA), and specific characterization of the soil (UNIBAS) will allow the optimization of the irrigation and storage strategies for the target sites (IVA Rabat). Modeling and following optimization by mean of modern tools (SAPIENZA) will conduct to the choice of the best approach suitable to be implemented. Collected data will provide a validation in a real environment of the developed SAFE methodology as a general tool suitable to be applied in other Mediterranean areas where water scarcity and climatic conditions play a strong role for agriculture practice. Environmental and human health risk assessment (ICRA) of irrigation practices will be performed based on the characterization of water (IVA Rabat), soils, and plants (tomatoes, oregano, and lettuce as reference) and tested on site (Tunisia, France, Greece and Algeria). Multi-disciplinarity of SAFE partners gives a holistic approach (knowledge advancement and know-how transfer of innovative treatments developed, tested and on site validated) able to provide integrated procedures to increase crop yields and farmers’ incomes. The new farming system will consider the impact of proposed new practices on biodiversity and whole ecosystem (water, energy, soil fertility, crop yields).

The Mediterranean agriculture systems have known increasing pressures that include demographic growth, urbanization, increasing demand for high value products, and a high competition for land and water. Besides some vulnerable zones in inland knows a dramatic departure of their active labor forces through migration that induces important changes of the global social and natural functioning of these zones. This is particularly relevant in arid and desert lands of south Mediterranean countries where the traditional societies used to explore and valorize vast uncultivated arid lands thanks to original livestock systems based on camels and small ruminants, grazing systems and mobility, and kinships links to manage common resources in their spatial and temporal dimensions. In particular, the system based on camel system at the interaction between oasis and desert lands has known radical functional changes over the last decades, due both to the urbanization and modernization of living conditions in the oasis and also to the intensification (or, sometimes, extensification) of the crop systems in these fragile environments that raise many challenges and also risks that can impede their durability. So the proposed project aims to describe, understand and model the past and recent trajectories of these “camel societies”, identify the main drivers (factors) that impact the combined social dynamic and ecosystems processes on the use of resources, in order to propose socially driven solutions emerging from the societies to sustain human activities and their local resources. The project CAMED proposes (i) to describe the past and recent trajectories of the societies based on dromedary system in Saharan zones of Algeria and Morocco (WP1) using holistic and systemic approaches (system approach at the community/territorial level and livelihood approach at the family level), and (ii) to analyze the present impacts of social and cultural changes and ecosystem dynamics on the whole socioecological systems (WP2) based on longitudinal and diachronic approaches at the farm, herd and resource system level. Along this process the research will have to determine critical key-pathways where sociocultural changes (WP1) affect radically ecosystem changes (WP2) and vice versa. The impact analysis in (WP3) will be based on the participatory impact pathway approach that will associate all the stakeholders of the local communities and policy-makers. The objective is to draw socially driven solutions. Some pilot projects related to value chain and resource management at the territorial level have been pre-identified. One important component of the project will be to provide research and development trainings (WP4) and share a common knowledge on these zones that are characteristics of the South Mediterranean countries. So this project proposes to combine systemic and holistic approaches, often used separately in human or natural/biological sciences, within selected socio-ecosystems related to camel society that have been little studied before. The goal is to share common scientific and indigenous knowledge between research and society related to these systems and to propose relevant actions for decision makers related to these zones that cover more than one third of the selected countries (Algeria and Morocco).

Climate change and population growth are expected to exacerbate the water crisis of Mediterranean African Countries (MACs), where agriculture accounts for 80-85% of freshwater consumption. The aim of MADFORWATER is to develop a set of integrated technological and management solutions to enhance wastewater treatment, reuse for irrigation and water efficiency in agriculture in three MACs (Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt). MADFORWATER will develop and adapt to three main hydrological basins in the selected MACs technologies for the production of irrigation-quality water from drainage canals, municipal, agro-industrial and industrial wastewaters, and technologies for water efficiency and reuse in agriculture, initially validated at laboratory scale. Selected technologies will be further adapted and validated in four field pilot plants of integrated wastewater treatment/reuse. Integrated strategies for wastewater treatment and reuse targeted to the selected basins will be developed, and guidelines for the development of integrated water management strategies in other basins of the three target MACs will be produced, considering climate change, population increase and economic growth scenarios. The social and technical suitability of the developed technologies and non-technological instruments in relation to the local context will be evaluated with the participation of MAC stakeholders and partners. Guidelines on economic instruments and policies for the effective implementation of the proposed water management solutions in the target MACs will be developed. The project will lead to a relevant long-term impact in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in terms of increased wastewater treatment, wastewater reuse, food production and income in the agricultural and water treatment sectors, and decreased groundwater exploitation, water pollution and food contamination. The MADFORWATER consortium consists of 18 partners, 5 of which from the 3 MACs and 1 from China.