Aquifers are a critical component of the water cycle, the ecosystems, and the socio-economic systems; especially in the southern shore of the Mediterranean, where water resources are limited and unevenly distributed in space and time. Some countries receive a mere 10% of the local total annual average rainfall. In such complex region, where aquifers are influenced by population growth, climate change, and environmental changes, it is increasingly important to enhance, manage and sustain services derived from aquifers and the groundwater. The conceptual framework of AGREEMed is inspired from the assumption that resilient water management, preservation of ecosystems, and sustainable agricultural development in water-stressed Mediterranean basins is possible if area’ specific portfolio of solutions and practices is designed and implemented in a participatory approach. AGREEMed project aims at improving the capacities of water actors in developing aquifer management plans and organizing demonstrations of such development in pilot areas in strategic agricultural Mediterranean basins: Souss-Massa in Morocco, Hammamet in Tunisia, and Jordan Valley in Jordan. This will be achieved by selecting, adapting, and implementing a combination of successful technologies and practices in the Mediterranean region within inclusive and adaptive aquifers’ governance plans. Specifically, AGREEMed seeks to: deliver scientific knowledge about quantity and quality status of groundwater and dependent ecosystems, evaluate non-conventional water technologies, promote innovative water treatment and brine management technologies, leverage Nature-Based Solutions, foster institutional water management practices, promote Big Data-based models added values, and introduce the collective intelligence concept in water resources management. To accomplish these sub-objectives, AGREEMed is relying on an international consortium of partners from different sectors (research centers, universities, association, SMEs) and proven expertise in the project pillars, and on an innovative methodology to approach the different milestones. In each of the pilot areas, “Stakeholders Bords” will be created and will include various actors in the water value chain. This coalition will represent an instrument of dialogue and inclusive governance and will be involved across the project activities. Exploratory investigations and evaluations of groundwater, associated ecosystems, and current non-conventional water technologies will be carried to guide the following activities. Aquifers governance plans specific to each pilot area will be built, combining non-conventional water technologies, disruptive Big-Data based models, NBS, and institutional practices according to findings of the exploratory researches. Socioeconomic and environmental assessments will be performed to secure the optimal footprints of the suggested solutions. Dedicated efforts will be made in upscaling and dissemination, for a larger outreach of the project outcomes within the Mediterranean region. The strategic ambitions of AGREEMed are falling within the scope of water thematic call as it addresses the vital role of aquifers and their management in the Mediterranean. The multidisciplinary and multiapproach of AGREEMed will be supporting the research activities in responding to the expectations of the selected topic regarding addressing the problem of water scarcity through innovation, integrating ecosystems and people, and reducing gaps between plans and implementation. To that end, AGREEMed’s value proposition in contributing to groundwater and dependent ecosystems sustainability is alleviated by a large portfolio of solutions and practices (technological, institutional, and scientific) where specificities of the pilot area, inclusiveness, and ecosystems are key pillars. Diverse innovations (products, business models, approaches, and organizational models) are expected within the framework of AGREEMed.

The overall objective of SWRIPS project is to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the water usage in the agri-food supply chain (SC) in the EU-Med area under a circular economy approach aimed to saving water and minimize the external use of resources, avoiding further contamination of land and water. SWRIPS addresses the thematic “Water Management - Prevent and reduce land and water salinization and pollution due to agri-food activities”. It aims to recover the wastewater produced in the agri-food processing and to reuse the purified water for fertigation purpose while at the same time recovering the substances produced in the process as a matrix for fertilizer, thus putting in place a virtuous cycle that reduces the overall consumption of freshwater, guarantees water availability to farmers, reduce soil drying out and the overall amount of additional fertilizers, is cost effective both for agri-food industries and farmers and, finally, is environmental and human-health friendly. SWRIPS will achieve it by implementing a circular economy and management system based on a Life Cycle Assessment: the environmental impact would be considered along the entire production chain, from the cultivation to the food processing and end-of-life water cycle. SWRIPS aims to demonstrate the possibility to -reduce the problem of scarcity of freshwater and of excessive salinization of the soil and contamination of aquifers, particularly critical in the Mediterranean areas, through the recovery of agri-food industry wastewater for fertigation; -reduce the need of external fertilizers and therefore the presence of nitrates, phosphates, sulphates etc. through the re-use of water and excess sludge produced in the purification process; - provide, thanks to an innovative integrated monitoring system, a continuous control of the quality of purified water, also guaranteeing the possibility of early warning in case of excessive pollutant levels (organic components, pesticides, metals) in any of the purification phases - control, through microbiology and chemical-physical analyses, all the relevant water, soil and crop parameters involved in the process to define fertiliser application better tailored to crop needs, soil conditions, and the agroecosystem's nitrogen cycle. - develop a flexible and cost-effective system that allows an optimized use based on crop seasonality and characteristics of the water to be treated, typical of the agri-food industry under study. SWRIPS identifies 3 fundamental innovative technical elements: -an innovative multi-stage purification system based on aerobic granular biomass and nanocomposite and photocatalyst based filters to remove pollutants; -an integrated test system for continuous monitoring of the physical and microbio-chemical parameters of the purified water, consisting of a compact solid-state UV spectroscopy apparatus and visible sensing system for early warning; -the usage of innovative deep-learning algorithms to optimize the whole water/crop cycle and reduce water footprint and environmental impact on water basins, soil and crop itself. SWRIPS will test the system in three sites and different agri-food SCs: citrus in Sicily, tomato canning in Tunisia and oil industry in Algeria. SWRIPS foresees a very strong consortium combining expertise in the development and set-up of innovative wastewater treatment and sensors with those of control software development and advanced optimization algorithms. SWRIPS partners have documented experience in quality water and fertilization crop control. These experiences are complemented by the technical-engineering ones on water distribution. An added value for SWRIPS is the presence of the end-users of the process: agricultural consortia and agri-food industries. This will allow not only to test the system in the laboratory and through software models but also to test its functionality in the field, in different operating and environmental conditions