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Improving Integrated Water Resources Management at catchment scale Overview of EU Research Activities

Improving Integrated Water Resources Management at catchment scale Overview of EU Research Activities. Panagiotis Balabanis DG Research - Directorate I Water Cycle and Soil-related aspects panagiotis.balabanis@cec.eu.int. Three decades of EU water research.

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Improving Integrated Water Resources Management at catchment scale Overview of EU Research Activities

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  1. Improving Integrated Water Resources Management at catchment scaleOverview of EU Research Activities Panagiotis Balabanis DG Research - Directorate I Water Cycle and Soil-related aspects panagiotis.balabanis@cec.eu.int

  2. Three decades of EU water research • Water research was a major component of successive EU environmental research programmes • EU funded research in the field of water covered a wide number of areas (e.g. hydrological and biogeochemical aspects, aquatic ecosystems functioning, groundwater management, remediation of contaminated areas, etc.) • Earlier programmes were focussed on the development of scientific knowledge to support environmental quality standards and objectives

  3. Three decades of EU water research • Research results provided important scientific and technological insights and policy contributions • They also highlighted that water resources management is an extremely complex undertaking

  4. From estimating regional recharge to developing guidelines for sustainable management • Within the context of the EFEDA project (1989-1992) research on spatial and temporal variability of recharge has been initiated • Results highlighted that the current level of groundwater exploitation in the upper Guadiana catchment was not sustainable in the long term

  5. From estimating regional recharge to developing guidelines for sustainable management (cont.) • The GRAPES (1996-1999) project initiated to assess groundwater over-exploitation and develop a sustainable management programme • The project GOUVERNe (2002-2003) responds to the requirement for integrated systems of information permitting coherent policy and resource management decisions covering water uses in Europe, in the context of the new Water Directive for watershed-based water management.

  6. Water Key Action “Sustainable Management and Quality of Water” • The Water Key Action puts the foundations for integrated responses to water resources management with a view of: • coping with the fragmentation in managing water • improving the integration between disciplines • supporting the new Water Framework Directive

  7. Water Framework Directive • Expanding the scope of water protection to all waters, groundwater and surface waters • Achieving and/or keeping "good status" for all waters within a set time deadline • Development of river basin management plans (single management system) • Combining the approach of emission limit values (ELVs) with water quality standards (WQSs) • Establishing water pricing policies taking into account principle of full cost recovery • Getting citizens and interested parties more closely involved

  8. WFD: needs for research • methodologies for assessment and classification of the ecological status • methodologies for establishing the reference conditions • Methodologies for defining heavily modified water bodies • groundwater assessment methodologies • prioritisation of hazardous substances • IWRM tools: • modelling tools and decision support systems

  9. Water Key Action “Sustainable Management and Quality of Water” • Part of the Environment and Sustainable Development specific programme • 250 M Euros available for RTD projects, fellowships, SME Measures and accompanying measures in four years (1999-2002) • Seven main areas: integrated management at catchment scale, ecological quality, treatment and reuse, pollution prevention, monitoring and forecasting, arid and semi-arid region, standardisation

  10. Distribution of funding at the end of FP5

  11. Water Key ActionIntegrated management methodologies and tools at catchment/river basin scale • Understanding the various components of the natural anthropogenic and socio-economic systems and their linkages • Development and validation of harmonised modelling tools (The CATCHMOD cluster)

  12. Water Key ActionIntegrated management methodologies and tools at catchment/river basin scale • Integrated assessments of water quality in selected river basins (e.g. INCA, DANUBS) • Integrated management of wetlands and lakes (e.g. EVALUWET, EUROLAKES) • Improved methodologies for linking various processes and components at catchments (e.g. FIRMA, EUROCAT) • Groundwater management (e.g. BASELINE, W-SAHARA) • Socio-economic aspects (e.g. EUWARENESS, ADVISOR, SLIM) • Decision supports tools (e.g MULINO, GOUVERNe, MERIT

  13. European catchment changes and their impact on the coast (EUROCAT)

  14. Water Key ActionThe CATHMOD cluster • Integrating physicochemical, ecological and socioeconomic aspects • Developing a universally accepted well defined and documented Open Modelling Interface. • Providing guidelines and benchmarking criteria for good modelling practices • Establishing a network of experimental river basins • Developing, harmonising and validating integrated modelling tools at river basin scale • Securing sustainable use of water and supporting the implementation of the WFD

  15. Clustering strategy • Need to foster synergies and to reduce overlaps among different projects • Need to better monitor the progress of science in each specific field • Need to better exploit and disseminate results • Need to integrate the European scientific communities • Need to facilitate the interface with stakeholders and decision makers

  16. The CATCHMOD Cluster Harmonising Catchment Modelling Tools for Integrated Water Resources Management HarmoniCA (concerted action for Cluster co-ordination) Methodologies Modelling benchmarking River Basin Case Studies HarmonIT (IT tools for a Open Modelling Environment) HarmoniQuA (Quality Assurance in modelling) HarmoniCOP (Methodologies of Collaborative Planning) BMW (Integrated modelling benchmarking) EUROHARP (Nutrient modelling optimisation) TempQSim (Modelling ephemeral water bodies) CLIME (Modelling climate change impact on lakes) TiszaRiverProject (Integrated modelling applied to a large wetland-rich catchment) HarmoniRiB (Experimental river basin network for model testing and for data uncertainty analysis) TRANSCAT (Integrated water management in transboundary catchments)

  17. Integrated management Quality Monitoring ENDO CATCHMOD WFD Quality Assessment ELOISE ACTIF (FLOOD) PHARMA ARID SENSPOL Technologies CityNet EUGRIS Sednet (Soil) PaTanTex DRINK Clustering

  18. European research towards applicable solutions in the field of integrated water resources management • CATCHMOD: a cluster of 10 projects (around 30 M€) to support the development of harmonised modelling tools for river basin planning • ARID: a cluster of 3 major projects on management of scarce water resources • CITY-NET: a cluster of 5 projects on integrated urban water management • ACTIF: a cluster of 8 projects on flood forecasting and management

  19. Strengthening complementarity and exploitation of results of related RTD projects dealing with water resources use and management in arid and semi-arid regions (ARID)

  20. The network of European research projects on integrated urban water management (CityNet)

  21. Harmoni-CA Concerted Action Harmonised Modelling Tools for Integrated Basin Management

  22. Harmoni-CA will produce Guidance and Methodologies based on Support and Consensus

  23. Harmoni-CA work packages • Establishment of a communication forum / Harmoni-CA Management • Toolbox • Guidance documents for river basin modelling • Joint use of monitoring and modelling • Integrated assessment and science-policy interface • Co-ordination of ongoing/future RTD-activities

  24. Achieving Technological Innovation in Flood Forecasting (ACTIF) • Prepare guidelines of best European practice in flood forecasting technology • Prepare guidelines on the access to high quality, site specific, data for further research and analysis • Improve the interdisciplinary scientific linkages between specialists in meteorology, hydrology and hazard mitigation with principal users

  25. Conclusions • Past and ongoing EU research activities in the field of water have contributed to the development of Europe’s scientific and technical capacity in the field of water and have been at the forefront of international efforts to support the foundations for a sustainable water management • The Water Key Action provides opportunities for further strengthening the synergies between projects and for bringing together scientists and water managers thus providing decisions-makers with appropriate tools for managing water resources in an integrated way, balancing the very often conflicting environmental and economic requirements

  26. Conclusions • More emphasis should be given to build awareness of the outputs of EC and other relevant national research and make the research outputs accessible to the scientific and user communities

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