FLUXMED

The Mediterranean regions are subjected to a large variety of climates, ranging from arid to sub-humid with summers characterized by high temperatures and low precipitation. At the same time, the water scarcity highlights the need for careful water resources management and planning in Mediterranean regions. In the Mediterranean regions, there is a persistent declining trend of precipitation and runoff decreases, contributing to a desertification process with dramatic consequences for agricultural and water resources sustainability. Climate change projections point to an amplification of changes in global precipitation patterns and trends, with further drier trends for the Mediterranean area and dramatic consequences on water resources for managed and natural systems. To face the upcoming water crisis, there is a need to develop stronger international cooperation in water research and enhance the resilience of agricultural and natural systems to climate change. In water-limited regions the conservation of water through improving agriculture and environmental management practices is highly needed, and the use of water-efficient and drought-tolerant tree and crop species a prerequisite. Land planning strategies need to be investigated under both current and future scenarios, due to the impact of these strategies on the environment and the water resources.

WP1-Project Management and Coordination 

WP2- Experimental fields and watersheds: a new transnational Mediterranean watershed monitoring network. This work package will consist in the instrumentation and the monitoring of the experimental sites using meteorological or micrometeorological sensors, and the monitoring of rainfall and streamflow in the hydrologic basins. Analysis and data elaboration will be performed for: control and quality check of data; estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) components in agricultural and natural environments; estimation of relationships between ET and soil moisture in different field sites.

 WP3- Ecohydrological modelling. This work package will develop iinnovative spatially distributed versions that couple land surface models (LSMs) and vegetation dynamic models (VDM) and rainfall-runoff hydrologic models for simulating also runoff propagation at the basin scale. 

WP4- Remote sensing and data assimilation. This work package will obtain vegetation indices and surface temperatures (Ts) from images of ASTER, NOAA AVHRR, SEVIRI and SENTINEL. Ts and vegetation indices estimates from remote sensing will be tested with the observations of the field campaigns and will be used for developing a Data assimilation system. 

WP5- Analysis of land cover change strategies and climate change scenarios. Future climate scenarios will be generated starting from historical climate data perturbed following the IPCC future climate scenarios of the Fifth Assessment report. Annual, seasonal, monthly and daily statistical series for precipitation, runoff, and temperature and annual and seasonal trends will be computed. Climate models for future scenarios will be selected after comparing the models’ outputs with the observed data in each investigated region. An opportunely adapted stochastic generator will be used for accounting the unstationarity of the climate processes and the climate changes. The use of ecohydrological models, data assimilation system and IPCC scenarios will allow to to identify the impacts of contrasting vegetation and crop types on the soil water balance, surface runoff, and water use under current and past Mediterranean climates, to predict the impact of future climate scenarios on soil water balance, runoff, and water use, and to develop a set of land cover change strategies (e.g. forestations/deforestation, use of more drought-tolerant crops and woody vegetation) for climate change scenarios that optimize the water uses and increase system resilience.

WP6: Development of water management and planning systems. This work package will develop a multipurpose and multiuser water management system to improve the multipurpose and multiuser water resources management and planning systems for the opti-mization of the water infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs, groundwater recharge, water harvesting) and uses (irrigation, animal production systems, drinking and industrial activities) under current and future climate change scenarios. Water resources management optimization models (WARGI by UNICA, Hec-ResPRM, and others) will be applied and improved to define the economic efficiency and the optimal water allocation in the water system configurations throughout the evaluation of multiple planning and management rules. WP7: Quantifying benefits and sharing methodologies with stakeholders and dissemination. This work package will include the dissemination and exploitation activities to stakeholders (both public authorities and companies and private companies) and scientific community. In particular within the 

WP7 we will: organize start-up stakeholder meetings in all case studies to tap into the knowledge and experience of all local stakeholders and fine-tune the planning of the monitoring and modeling activities; conduct participatory seminars; identify acceptable scenarios in view of simulated impacts; conduct participatory seminars for discussing possible configurations; share methodological developments; deliver results and disseminate outcomes. Project results will be made available to the scientific community, to foster the development of multidisciplinary activities focusing on hydrology, climatology, hydraulic construction, environmental sciences, water and irrigation management. Scientific publications in international and national journals, participation to the main international conferences, a final report of the activities and three public workshops will be the way to disseminate and communicate the results also beyond the scientific community. A project web site, a “Google” research page and a “Facebook” page will be created for an effective communication and transfer of the results. The project results will have implications in the operative water management of single farmer, irrigation consortia and water basin and environmental authorities.

The Project will have positive social and economic impacts. The FLUXMED objectives respond to priorities of H2020 Societal Challenge 5, Call topic SC5-11-2016 because we propose to increase the efficiency of Mediterranean water resources and innovate the approach for water resources planning and management for both current and future climate change scenarios. The proposal supports the requests of innovative solutions of the UN SDG6, providing new techniques and methodologies for increasing the water-use efficiency of water-limited Mediterranean regions, which are suffering water scarcity. Integrated water resources management will be implemented, linking Southern European and North African partners, and address the need of international cooperation in water research. In most Mediterranean regions water and environmental plans are missing and when available they don’t properly include future scenario impacts. One key objective of the research project is to combat climate change impacts, supporting the UN SDG 13, because future climate change scenarios are predicting a decrease in water resources availability. As consequence existing water resources plans are wrong, because these are based on water input (surface and groundwater) that will not be any longer available. At the same time environmental plans need to consider the climate change effect on both CO2 budget and water resources use of vegetation and water resources availability to vegetation growth, which can impact on species type (in drier climate more resistant species should survive) and their spatial distribution (less water implies less density). Instead, our proposed methodology is strongly innovative and integrate new knowledge, allowing to adequately develop water resources and environmental planning also for future climate change scenarios. The project’s economic impact will be significant for agricultural development and its sustainability because the project aims to increase the system efficiency and decrease the costs. Stakeholders will be involved and will have a main role in the project. The project will provide the stakeholders the scientific approach and results for defining the planning and management strategies for both current and future climates. A main part of the project will be the dissemination of the results to the stakeholders and to the society in general, due to the impact on social customs and traditions. The strong international cooperation of this project is a central tenet. Climate change is affecting water resources in Mediterranean region, and there is the need to develop international cooperation in water research between Mediterranean countries. Southern European partners will collaborate with North African partners providing a unique opportunity for knowledge and experience exchanges. Indeed, the wide and international partnership of FLUXMED is a key point of the project. All the academic partners have strong expertise formed at the best international schools, with aspiration to collaborate for knowledge and experience exchanges. Experts of a wide range of complimentary fields, e.g. hydrology, hydraulic, ecology, forestry, agronomy, micrometeorology, geophysics and environmental economics are involved, providing an excellent opportunity to advance water resources science of semi-arid and arid Mediterranean regions. FLUXMED offers a unique opportunity of exchanges of research and knowledge, which is the base for increasing the research development in water resources. Only through analyzing sites with contrasting spatial scales, vegetation covers and climate will be possible to understand deeply the complex ecohydrologic processes, and the strongly nonlinear dynamics between soil, vegetation and atmosphere, which is the key element of environmental planning strategies for optimizing the water use and increase the resilience of agrosilvopastoral systems.