Water quality and quantity are under arising pressure from agricultural activities that may cause overexploitation of natural waters and pollutants runoffs (e.g., nutrients, pesticides). These stresses are also compounded by climate change effects. To address the complex challenges of agri-water management, the UNIVERSWATER consortium will adopt a ‘system of systems’ approach by developing and improving technologies designed to optimise water resources uses in a fully integrated way. A dedicated interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium of 15 partners from six European countries will: a) develop innovative portable and in-situ sensors for a number of parameters and pollutants (salinity, nutrients, CEC, microbiological indicators) and b) couple them with earth observation imaging and advanced explainable and robust artificial intelligence techniques, as well as c) develop cost-effective, sustainable methods based on nature-based and technology-based solutions for water remediation at the point of need and d) promote the adoption of the developed methods through pricing incentive provision. These technologies will be integrated into decision support systems (DSSs) that will be tested at three case studies tackling on-farm treatment of dairy soiled water, mitigation of soil salination through water reuse, and optimisation of fertiliser/pesticide application for freshwater preservation. Going beyond, UNIVERSWATER will upscale these local DSSs into a common platform where a suite of DSS tools can be adapted to different situations after being tailored to the local factors, thereby developing a modular, extensible and holistic universal DSS.

H4C Europe project will create a European Community of Practice (ECoP). It will provide a community, knowledge platform, and exchange structures that will help the existing and future hubs in creation, management, and growth, by overcoming barriers to IS/I-US/C. The ECoP is set up to be self-sustaining. 10 existing Hubs have committed to join as ECoP Founding Members. The ECoP will preserve the findings of IS/I-US/C research and innovation projects, especially those funded by the EC and member states. It will organize a continuous exchange of ideas and best practices and facilitate in-depth exchanges between experts to identify bottlenecks, evaluate the outcomes of related projects, and propose innovative approaches to overcome bottlenecks. Possible topics include the financing and operation of IS infrastructures, matching demand and supply in IS and I-US, sharing benefits, cross-border exchange of materials, water, and waste-water systems, regulatory issues in the use of secondary raw materials, the tension between re-use and use of waste as feedstock, to name a few. Digitalization is a transversal enabling aspect of IS/I-US/C and the usage of digital tools will be an important aspect of each expert group. In line with the call and to achieve its vision, the CSA will work along four axes: 1) Sustainable Community building and establishment of an IT knowledge platform as a tool, 2) Consolidation and creation of available knowledge by analysis of the state of the art, in-depth discussions of leading experts, and field trials of business models and financial strategies a.o. for large-scale demonstrators, 3) Development of a KPI toolkit for the assessment of the maturity of IS/I-US/C regional initiatives towards H4C and independent evaluation of H4Cs as candidates for lighthouse projects, as well as the elaboration of policy recommendations, 4) Promotion of the H4C concept, societal engagement, and policy recommendations.

The role of ICT in contributing to the “Smart Technologies EIP Priority” is widely recognised by the scientific community and water business professionals. Despite relevant progress and innovation achieved in this field, several barriers hinder the implementation of Smart Water Technologies such as the fragmentation of the sector, slow adoption, absence of SME development, and no holistic vision of water supply considering its whole life cycle. Moreover, at present a fully integrated Smart Water Network does not exist in Europe or globally. Hence, current lack of knowledge of EU water research and innovation results on industry, policy makers, and citizens is slowing down the widespread application of solutions that can leverage the development of the urban systems and infrastructures of tomorrow. This scenario shows that achieving water-related challenges cannot progress with the sole contribution of research. In this sense, the project has the vision of establishing and supporting a thriving, interconnected ICT for water community to promote the dissemination and exploitation of EU funded activities and results in this area. WIDEST will address its goals through a project-to-project approach and the coordination among relevant stakeholders by means of five objectives that will include, amongst others: Conducting literature reviews of relevant academic and commercial references; Establishing common frameworks such as standards, guidelines, website, video channel; Organizing events including conferences, workshops, special sessions; Producing three Topical Roadmaps and one Overall Roadmap; Producing a Portfolio of effective ICT for water management technologies including the methodology to build, update and execute it. The project is backed by a strong consortium composed by institutions with proven track record and expertise across different facets of ICT for water research, including established connections with key stakeholders.

In the last years, extreme weather patterns of water scarcity (droughts) and water abundance (floods, rapid showers) are becoming more frequent and prolonged in the EU. If we do not remedy this situation, by 2050 water scarcity will lead to €12,2 billion losses per year and affect 17% of EU population. RAINS will contribute to improve the resilience of EU agriculture to water scarcity by demonstrating 10 solutions (irrigation practices, technologies and tools) that will increase the efficiency of water and nutrient management in agriculture and reduce the impact of extreme weather events. RAINS solutions include alternative forms of water supply, combined use of water and biofertilisers, improved soil water-retention, water-N/P modelling and some smart solutions (Optifangs-IA, WaterIQ) to contribute to decision-making and to integrated irrigation management across farm systems. Solutions will be demonstrated at 10 demo-farm systems representing agroecology, organic production, conventional, intensive and urban agriculture, replicated in Greece and Spain. We will also develop a hydrological and N/P model to optimised agriculture production at catchment level. A well, we will conduct co-creation workshops, knowledge transfer activities and create materials such as guidelines (2), White Papers (2) and Practice Abstracts (40). Policy focused sessions will deliver 3 sets of policy and incentives recommendations, engaging quadruple helix agricultural stakeholders, to pave the way for the uptake of sustainable irrigation and fertilization management solutions in practice in the EU. In the long term, RAINS will contribute to improve water efficiency by 50% in 12,700 ha. in more than 20 EU regions, and support >500 farmers in the transition to a more sustainable irrigation. And by 2050, the implementation of the RAINS project will save up to €6.1 billion, 244.348 million litres of water and 35.4 t CO2 eq. avoided emissions.

Water purification and disinfection are crucial processes to provide safe water to citizens, but the low quality of water sources due to soil/freshwater increasing contamination makes this goal very challenging. Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), produced when chlorine disinfectant reacts with organic matter in water, have a serious impact even at low concentrations on the environment and human health, still not well understood. Effects on human’s liver activity and neurotoxicity were already reported. H2OforAll project aims to assess main DBPs sources and fate through the development of fast, cost-effective and accurate sensor monitoring devices and also by modelling their spread through drinking water distribution systems. In addition, DBPs toxicity and environmental impact will be studied in this project and measures will be proposed to protect drinking water chain. On the other hand, breakthrough water treatments to remove DBPs or avoid their formation during water disinfection processes will be developed, paying attention to their life cycle analysis, costs and risks. A central knowledge base with reliable data on the occurrence of DBPs in Europe and their effects will be created to increase awareness of society and governmental organizations about these drinking water contaminants in order to draw new policy responses and guidance.