General Information
The WATER4All initiative main objective is to enable water security for all on the long term, by boosting systemic transformations and changes across the water-research innovation pipeline, fostering the matchmaking between problem owners and solution providers. The partnership proposes a portfolio of multi-national, multi-faceted and cross-sectoral approach, encompassing policy, environmental, economic, technological and societal considerations.
By 2030, it intends to achieve reduced water stress, increased protection of water resources and ecosystems and enhanced resilience, mitigation and adaptation of water systems to global changes.
Call Information
The joint transnational call will be launched in the framework of the European partnership Water4All and will support research and innovation projects aimed at delivering knowledge, models, approaches, tools and methodologies to better understand hydrological processes at different scale, in order to respond more efficiently to emerging water issues related to extreme events.
In line with the strategic objectives of Water4All, the results of the projects will contribute to the implementation of evidence-based, global, EU and national water management policies and strategies, within the frameworks of the Green Deal, the Water Framework Directive, Just Transition and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, governance playing a key role in water challenges, the 2023 Joint Transnational Call will seek for innovative governance models, and enhanced participation of stakeholders in water management issues related to extreme events.
Call Topics:
The call will focus on solutions for hydroclimatic extreme events, as described in the Water4All Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda Theme III “Water for the future: sustainable water management”, as well as address the cross-cutting Theme VII “Governance” and Theme V “Water Infrastructures”. Research & innovation proposals submitted under the Water4All 2022 Joint Transnational Call are required to address at least one of the following topics:
Topic 1. Mapping, monitoring, and assessment for a better understanding of ecosystem services in a context of changes, from local to global change. Proposals may cover the following subtopics:
- Enhancing the added value of data on the state and trends of ecosystem services: promoting metaanalyses across scales and syntheses of existing data sets.
- Supporting a transnational network of harmonized monitoring schemes building upon the work conducted under other initiatives (MAES - https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC120383; TEEB - https://teebweb.org/) and previous EU projects.
- Developing, testing, and comparing methodologies for the biophysical and monetary valuation of ecosystem services in aquatic ecosystems, including intrinsic social and economic values. Valuation methodologies should reflect stakeholders’ perceptions of value and ensure that users of ecosystem services are involved in the process.
- Identifying operational ecosystem services metrics that consider the interactions between people and ecosystems.
Topic 2. Understanding and predicting multiple pressures (including anthropogenic pressures) - impact – response relationships in ecosystem services through advanced methods and techniques.
- Assessing the effect of different anthropogenic pressures from human activities and cumulative effects on ecosystems and ecosystem services.
- Improving/Developing approaches aimed at improving our understanding of the impacts of policy interventions for the protection or restoration of ecosystem services at relevant temporal and spatial scales.
- Developing innovative approaches for the restoration of aquatic systems (e.g. habitat dynamics, nutrient cycling, trophic relations, morphological conditions, river continuity and connectivity, sediment flows, hydraulic connectivity, groundwater flow, and ecological flow) and ecosystem services. Opportunities provided by new technological developments should be seized.
- Analysing the potential for upscaling in space and time successful ecosystem services restoration approaches.
Topic 3. New tools and solutions for a better integration of ecosystem services into the management of water resources.
- Innovative management and governance strategies for integrating ecosystem services into conservation policies and restoration measures. Proposals should build upon the ecological knowledge of indigenous and local communities to enable their involvement in the co-design and coimplementation of proposed solutions, as well as the “One Health” approach to better understand existing links between ecosystem services and human well-being.
- Assessing the performance of different governance systems in supporting ecosystem services (resilience, adaptation to global changes, key lessons, failures) and of developing our understanding of existing barriers or resistance in the implementation of ecosystem services frameworks.
Please note that it is not compulsory to address all subtopics within a topic in the proposals.
Click here to read the Call Announcement.
Call publication and tentative timeline:
- Submission Deadline of Pre-proposal: 13 November 2023 at 15:00 (CET)
- Selection of Pre-proposals: February 2024
- Submission Deadline of Full-proposals: 29 April 2024
- Selection of Proposals: September 2024
- Projects kick off / Start: End 2024/ Beginning 2025
Support for Applicants:
Submission Platform: Click here
Partnering tool: Click here
The list of projects passed 1st stage: Click here
Related Cluster
Food, bioeconomy, natural resources, agriculture and environment
