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.

GOVAQUA identifies, assesses, develops and validates innovative governance instruments and approaches to support and accelerate a transition towards sustainable and equitable water use in Europe. Such a transition is urgently required to reconcile water uses and environmental needs and to reach the aims of the EU WFD, the Green Deal and the UN SDGs. By adopting an inter- and transdisciplinary methodology that combines case studies with living labs, the highly skilled GOVAQUA team will systematically analyse and compare existing water governance systems across Europe, focusing on water use and its impacts in agriculture, industries, energy production, water utilities and the role of citizens. GOVAQUA conceptualises for the first time sustainability transition in water governance, and creates associated criteria and indicators for its assessment. In order to respond to systemic development needs for the transition, the project covers niche governance innovations in 1) legislation and regulation, 2) multi-stakeholder participation and collaboration, 3) economics and finance, and 4) digital solutions for information sharing. Good practices related to them are systematically reviewed, analysed and compared, and further co-developed, assessed and validated with key stakeholders in real-world action situations of six living labs in river basins, sub-basins or catchments in France, Finland, Spain, the UK and Romania, and transnationally between Finland and Sweden. GOVAQUA delivers new knowledge, participatory tools and good practice guidelines laying out pathways towards sustainable and equitable water future. The project results will be disseminated in a strategic and targeted manner to EU and Member State policy makers and officials, European river basin management community, water and water using sectors, NGOs and water governance expert organisations, and communicated to empower citizens in the consortium partner countries and beyond.

The impact climate and global change (CC and GC) is endangering human health, food security and biodiversity. Urgent action is needed to achieve 2030 zero pollution goals. MAR2PROTECT will provide a holistic approach to prevent groundwater (GW) contamination from GC and CC impacts based on a new-generation managed aquifer recharge (MAR). The core of the innovative MAR is the M-AI-R DSS that will incorporate technological and societal engagement information using an AI-based evaluation to improve GW quality. To ensure a high replication potential, M-AI-R DSS will collect information from 5 demo sites in EU (PT, IT, ES, NL) and 2 in non-EU countries (TN, ZA) which were carefully chosen by their degree of maturity from previous successful projects and a wide range of settings in terms of climatic conditions, water sources, type of pollution, MAR scheme and political/societal context. All technologies will be tested and validated until TRL5. MAR2PROTECT will ensure a strong engagement of civil society in GW prevention actions, up to a SRL equal to 6. The project will involve national and EU policy makers that, in collaboration with a Community of Practice formed by worldwide experts, will guarantee the strengthening EU policy for the prevention of GW contamination. Thanks to its holistic approach and to the high replicability of its results, MAR2PROTECT will lead to a marked enhancement in GW protection across the EU and beyond, and to the generation of knowledge for the transition to a sustainable water management. The consortium includes 8 partners and 1 affiliated entity from 6 different EU-countries and Switzerland and 2 international partners from Tunisia and South Africa: 2 Universities (UNIBO, KTU), 7 RTOs (NOVA-COO, CIIMAR, CETAND +AQUA, IHE, IT, ISSBAT, SUWI) and 1 Association (FEUGA). In addition, the inclusion of 3 large water utilities as associated partners and a policy maker from ZA will lead to a relevant enhancement of the project impact.

MARCLAIMED will be a breakthrough addressing in an efficient, sustainable, and trustworthy way the water scarcity and water stress mitigation. MARCLAIMED will support decision makers to integrate Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) with Alternative Water Resources (AWR) in River Basin and Drought Management Plans supporting the adaptation and resilience of structural supply systems in the context of climate change. The main outcome will be the MARCLAIMED Integrated Decision Support Tool (IDST) that will provide solutions to tackle existing and emerging threats and support decision making and adaptation policies. MARCLAIMED IDST will ensure I) high level operational performance through 3 AI-based tools to: i) monitor and control AWR quality, ii) forecast the water resources availability and iii) provide health, environmental and performance risk indicators; II) economic sustainability under uncertainty providing: i) a municipal scale water scarcity indicator, ii) water security economic value of MAR with AWR and iii) a cost recovery-based system; and III) social acceptance, strengthen the engagement of national and EU policy makers in collaboration with a Community of Practice and the definition of EU MAR-lines, as rules and guidelines, to promote policy recommendations and boost regulatory framework. MARCLAIMED results will be implemented and validated in 3 demo sites in southern (PT, ES) and western Europe (NL) chosen by their wide range of settings in terms of climatic conditions, alternative water sources, MAR scheme or MAR potential, as well as political and socio-cultural context. In addition, to cover a wide spectrum of economic sectors and activities, an industrial feasibility study (in the mining sector) will be carried out in central (PL) and eastern Europe RIS countries.

As (peri-)urban areas become increasingly digital, interconnected, and complex, alongside growing threats such as climate change, natural disasters, or cyber-attacks, there is an urgent need to enhance the resilience and security of critical infrastructures (CIs) and the essential services they support. ECHO addresses these challenges by creating a multi-level Resilience Ecosystem that unites CI operators, Emergency Service Providers (ESPs), local/regional authorities (AUTs), and emergency service providers (EMPs) to co-create innovative tools, services, and strategies, for enhanced (urban) resilience planning and management. ECHO develops an EU-sovereign Knowledge Hub and a suite of interoperable, modular, and cost-effective services, accessible via a centralized Platform. These include tools for threat forecasting, risk assessment, situational awareness, decision support, resilience plan evaluation, and scenario-based simulations, tailored to address diverse multi-hazard threats. Our Information Sharing Protocol ensures cost-effective resource pooling and collaboration, helping smaller municipalities overcome budget constraints. By using cutting-edge technologies such as Generative AI, we enable advanced modelling, forecasting, and decision-making while ensuring transparency and data security. ECHO operates through 4 pilot sites in Slovenia, Italy, Spain, and the cross-border Italy-Slovenia region, addressing multiple hazards (floods, landslides, drought, earthquakes, wildfires, infrastructure failures, cyber-attacks) and engage diverse stakeholders (AUTs, ESPs, EMPs) to test and validate our solutions in relevant settings, ensuring scalability and adaptability across Europe. Through comprehensive impact-generation activities, ECHO promotes best practices, empowering stakeholders of all sizes to strengthen the resilience of interconnected systems, enhancing the security and wellbeing of European citizens and communities.