Project Summary

Agricultural intensification, required to feed the growing world population, may be constrained by limited water resources and increased environmental pollution of soils and waters in the Mediterranean region. In particular, irrigated agriculture may induce negative impacts on the quantity and quality of natural resources such as land degradation by salinization and sodification (“on-site” impacts) and increased salt and nitrate loads in irrigation return flows (IRF) and receiving water bodies (“off-site” impacts). Therefore, an environment-integrated management of these constrained water and soil resources is essential. Accordingly, the EU Water Framework Directive should be expanded to implement water-pollution regulatory standards and policies regulating the discharge and quality of IRF.

The aim of this project is to provide scientific, technical and socio-economic information on salt and nitrogen contamination, and on pollution control measures in Mediterranean irrigated agriculture. The project addresses the thematic issue B.1 (Environment) of the FP6-2003-INCO-MPC-2 call in activities B.1.1 (Comprehensive water policy and integrated planning) and, particularly, B.1.2 (Improving the water consumption efficiency and effectiveness by users and uses). Seven scientific partners and ten stakeholder participants (Water user Associations and Public Water Authority Institutions) from six different countries (Algeria, Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and the United Kingdom) will participate for the four years of this project.

The main activities of the project will be: (1) input-output mass balances in representative irrigation districts and assessment of salt and nitrogen pollution effects of present agricultural management; (2) model simulation studies analysing potential best management strategies for pollution control; (3) evaluation of these strategies in selected pilot field trials (in particular: scheduling of irrigation, nitrogen fertilisation and reuse of drainage waters for irrigation); (4) socio-economic analysis of present agricultural management and of source-sink pollution control management alternatives; and (5) dissemination of results to water users and policy makers. Feedback with project end-users will take place via the participation of the stakeholders, thus ensuring that all relevant issues are properly addressed.

Project Summary

DeSurvey is a project funded by the European Commission under the Framework Programme 6 and contributing to the implementation of the actions ‘Mechanisms of desertification’ and ‘Assessment of the vulnerability to desertification and early warning options’ within the ‘Global Change & Ecosystems priority’.

In spite of the relevance of appropriate actions to counter and to combat desertification, there is a lack of standardised procedures to perform them at operational scales. The DeSurvey project offers a contribution to fill this gap by complementing assessment of desertification status with early warning and vulnerability evaluation of the involved land use systems. In this context, the interactive effects of climatic and human drivers of desertification will be taken into account in a dynamic way.

The ambition of the DeSurvey consortium is to deliver a compact set of integrated procedures of desertification assessment and forecasting, with application and tutorial examples at the EU and national scales. The performance of DeSurvey in other desertification threatened areas of UNCCD regional Annexes will be also tested against other expertise and available procedures. Indeed, partners (and sites) from Maghrebian and Sahelian countries as well as from Chile and NW China are associate members of this project.

DeSurvey 39 partners representing 10 EU Member States and 6 Third Country States, integrate key research organisations and industrial companies with a wide range of skills. They develop an operational prototype that includes flexible procedures, with generic and case specific components to which users can adapt according their biophysical and socio-economic environments and their data availability. DeSurvey will support international, European, national and regional authorities, organizations and institutions in fulfilling their monitoring/surveillance and reporting obligations, and help them to increase the efficiency of desertification treatment policies.

Project Summary

Water is recognized as the most limiting factor in Mediterranean regions, though N shortages seem as important as water scarcity. Breeding under these circumstances has been consistently funded by the EU-INCO programme. As crop productivity for a particular region is the consequence of the breeding x management x weather interaction, understanding the bases for improved management has been becoming increasingly important. The general objective of this proposal is to identify and transfer improvements in management of wheat and barley through increasing the capture and/or the use efficiency of water and N.

The project is based on the premise that understanding the physiological bases of the responses to water x N shortages would allow the design of more consistent management practices to overcome the deficiencies explored, either by directly using the concepts in such strategic design or by being able to build up (or adapt an existing) robust simulation models based on this knowledge and then allowing the testing of different alternatives exploring a large degree of G x E interactions. We aim to improve the understanding on the determinants of the crop ability to capture more water and/or to use water more efficiently in a range of N availability conditions; as well as to capture more N and/or to use N more efficiently in a range of water availability conditions.

In this case, both ranges will be characterized and described within the context of the project, (i) identifying plant/crop characteristics that may confer superior ability, (ii) building up a mechanistic simulation model used in the design of management strategies, (iii) testing agronomic hypothetical management strategies in these environments, and (iv) evaluating the socio-economic impact of the adoption of the improved strategies, and actually transferring the outcomes to the producers (with Farmers Associations in our partnership).

Project Summary

The final objective of the Project is to provide Guidelines for Drought Preparedness Plans and the Framework for the setting up of a Drought Preparedness Network for the Mediterranean countries. The main contribution provided by these guidelines will be their adaptation to the physical and socio-economic environment of the Mediterranean countries and their elaboration following a common methodology. The overall objective of the proposed project is to increase the scientific background and knowledge on droughts, the types of drought, their onset and end, their frequency of occurrence, the water resources availability and water demand in relation to the climate, the water shortage observed and the impacts of water shortage caused by droughts in the six Partner countries. The hydrological drought and the agronomic drought, that mainly affects Mediterranean rainfed agriculture, will be differentiated.