Newsletter January 2021

Within the EU-funded Coordination Support Action IC4WATER, International cooperation for Water, the Water JPI organises a workshop dedicated to exploring the opportunities for the scaling-up in Europe and beyond the JPI activities linked to water challenges

It will be held online on January 28^th from 9h30 to 15h00.

Building upon the key lessons and recommendations from previous Water JPI workshops on International Cooperation, the upcoming workshop will look at (i) How to increase awareness and participation of enterprises in flagship Water JPI activities, and (ii) Opportunities to enlarge the international portfolio of the Water JPI (RDI activities in strategic geographical areas, expertise and advocacy).

With the international organisations OECD and World Bank Group, and the International Cooperation Directorate of the European Commission there will be exchanges in breakout sessions. National competitiveness clusters, enterprises and policymakers will also join.

The Director of the Cleveland Water Alliance will give a keynote speech to explain how this alliance works in a region of the USA.

This workshop aims at:

• Identifying thematic priorities to boost the participation of enterprises in Water JPI activities to bring solutions to water challenges. 
• Reinforcing collaboration with enterprises.
• Identifying funding sources and schemes to increase activities and actions beyond Europe.
• Collecting views from possible partners on the capacity of the Water JPI to be involved in new types of activities (expertise, advocacy, knowledge and technology transfer), and identifying the potential Water JPI expertise and advocacy activities and new sources of funding.
• Enlarging the Water JPI partnership to other international partners.

Registration for the workshop is at https://waterjpi.wufoo.com/forms/m1fdwrwl1oxeibe/

For further information, contact the Water JPI Secretariat Waterjpisecretariat@agencerecherche.fr

The ERA-NET Cofund AquaticPollutants Thematic Annual Programming (TAP) Action will run for 24 months, from January 2022 to December 2024. The goal of the TAP Action is to help broaden and/or transfer knowledge on the characterization and transformation of physical, chemical or biological contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and methodologies and strategies to remediate and reduce these contaminants in aquatic ecosystems, by creating a network of national projects.

This network will also allow further alignment between the individual projects, lead to a greater impact at the European level, addressing research gaps and avoiding duplication across Europe and beyond.

Theme

The general theme of the AquaticPollutants TAP Action has been defined as “Measuring of inputs and taking actions to reduce CECs, pathogens and antimicrobial resistant bacteria in the aquatic ecosystems (inland and marine)”.

This theme aims at reducing the effects of CECs, including chemicals, pathogens, antimicrobial resistant bacteria and (micro)plastics in the aquatic ecosystems (inland and marine) and subsequent impacts on human, animal, plants and ecosystems.

Following the priorities identified in the Strategic and Research Innovation Agendas (SRIAs) of the three participating JPIs on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance, the theme of the AquaticPollutants TAP Action focuses in particular on multidisciplinary approaches to:

• the development of methodologies and strategies to remediate and reduce CECs (at the sources, on their pathways and end-of-pipe), including their environmental effects on water, soil, sediment and sludge and subsequently their effects on living organisms, ecosystems and human and animal health;
• the determination and modelling of the contribution of existing wastewater and excreta treatment technologies to the emergence and spread of AMR in aquatic ecosystems;
• the characterization of the exposome (including cocktail of contaminants, individual and collective behaviour and interactions between stresses of different natures);
• the evaluation of governance tools for new risk linked to contamination taking into account the reactions of public communities;
• the impact of CECs occurrence and AMR on the ecosystem services at the level of the catchment, and into the river basin management planning.

Funding Agencies

The countries who confirmed their participation in this TAP action are:

• Czech Republic, CZ (represented by TA CR)
• France, FR (represented by ANR)
• Ireland, IE (represented by EPA)
• Spain, ES (represented by AEI)
• Sweden, SE (represented by SRC).

This list is subjected to modification until July 2022.

For future updates click here.

From 23 to 27 November 2020, the SMART-Control project implemented a series of workshops and training courses on the use of web-based tools for the assessment of associated risks occurring at managed aquifer recharge (MAR) sites. The event was tailored on the needs and expertise of researchers, managers and operators of MAR schemes in Cyprus and brought together actors from different institutions from science and practice. Among them were representatives from the Water Development Department of Cyprus, Cyprus Geological Survey, Water Board of Larnaca, Union of Cypriot Farmers, Cyprus University of Technology, and the University of Cyprus – NIREAS International Water Research Center. The training courses provided both managers and technical operators with an introduction to the use of SMART-Control simulation tools with focus on improved real-time data observation and management to reduce the risks associated with MAR applications. The participants learned how to connect real-time environmental sensors with the SMART-Control modelling platform, how to use temperature measurements in infiltration basins and groundwater monitoring wells for a quick estimation of water residence times in the underground, as well as how to assess potential microbial risks using dedicated web-based tools. The core of the training course was represented by setting up and calculation of a numerical groundwater flow model directly from web browser using the capabilities of the project modelling platform. The training course concluded with a replication workshop in which two replication sites in Cyprus were found potentially suitable for implementing the SMART-Control approach to improve water management. The event was organised by the project partners adelphi and the University of Cyprus with contributions from TU Dresden and Berlin Centre of Competence for Water, Germany.

SMART-Control (“Smart framework for real-time monitoring and control of subsurface processes in managed aquifer recharge (MAR) applications”) is a WaterJPI project of the 2017 call “Water resource management in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” running from February 2019 to January 2022. The project consortium consists of in total 9 partners from France, Cyprus, Germany and Brazil and is coordinated by Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. The main objective of SMART-Control is to reduce the risks associated with the application of sustainable groundwater management techniques by developing an innovative web-based real-time monitoring and control system (RMCS) in combination with risk assessment and management tools. The system builds up on the functionalities of the existing groundwater modelling platform developed by the Research Group INOWAS at TU Dresden, Germany (https://www.inowas.com). For more info visit the project website at: https://www.smart-control.inowas.com.

Project funded by:

The Water JPI is pleased to announce a premium partnership on the dashboard of SDG 6 with the Dutch company Data for Good.

Data for Good is an online mission control center to globally unite people, knowledge and data. The Dutch startup is dedicated to procure the tools needed to deliver transparency and create a better living environment and more self-sustainability. At Data For Good policies are translated into missions which are all related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Data For Good platform allows governing agencies, corporations, civilians and experts to join forces in tackling challenges such as ensuring clean water and sanitation, reaching higher usages of clean energy and defending gender equality, all to promote sustainable cities and communities. Within Data For Good there are no frontiers between the actors, whether they come from the public or private sector, all will work together in the mission control rooms dedicated to achieve the sustainable development goals targets by 2030.

On the 14^th of December 2020, the Water JPI coordinator was invited to participate to the annual conference organized by the Brazilian State and Federal Funding Agencies about the International Cooperation in Research & Innovation. The event was organized by the Brazilian National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP) in partnership with the European Union, though Enrich in Brazil and was streamed in English though the YouTube Channel.

The objective of the event is to showcase ongoing partnerships and programmes. And the Water Joint Programming Initiative was invited in this framework to present its collaboration with CONFAP and beyond. Very dynamically, everyone had 6 minutes to present its program or project.

It was a high-level meeting with the President of the CONFAP, and the ambassador of EU delegation, as well as a representative of the Brazilian foreign affairs.