HORIZON EUROPE UNIVERSWATER Project: Universal interoperable platform for sustainable agricultural water management
- Type Project
- Status Firmado
- Execution 2024 -2027
- Assigned Budget 5.996.597,75 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing Horizonte Europa 2021-2027
- Project website Proyecto UNIVERSWATER
The growing pressure on water quality and quantity due to agricultural activities poses critical challenges, compounded by the impacts of climate change. Nutrient and pesticide runoff, along with the overexploitation of natural water sources, threatens ecosystems and human health.
The EU-funded UNIVERSWATER project brings together a consortium of 15 partners across six European countries. By integrating innovative wearable sensors, Earth observation imagery, and advanced artificial intelligence, the project will improve the use of water resources and optimize wastewater treatment on livestock farms, mitigate soil salinization, and optimize the application of fertilizers and pesticides. This initiative aims to revolutionize water management in agriculture, paving the way for smarter and more efficient use of water resources and environmental stewardship.
Water quality and quantity are under pressure from agricultural activities, which can lead to overexploitation of natural waters and runoff of pollutants (e.g., nutrients, pesticides).
These tensions are also exacerbated by the effects of climate change. To address the complex challenges of agricultural water management, the UNIVERSWATER consortium will adopt a systems-of-systems approach by developing and improving technologies designed to optimize the use of water resources in a fully integrated manner. A dedicated interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral consortium of 15 partners from six European countries:
- It will develop innovative portable and in-situ sensors for a range of parameters and pollutants (salinity, nutrients, CEC, microbiological indicators).
- It will combine these with Earth observation imagery and advanced, explainable, and robust artificial intelligence techniques.
- It will develop cost-effective and sustainable methods based on nature-based solutions and technology for water remediation at the point of need.
- It will promote the adoption of the developed methods by providing price incentives.
These technologies will be integrated into decision support systems (DSS) that will be tested in three case studies addressing on-farm treatment of dairy-contaminated water, soil salinity mitigation through water reuse, and fertilizer/pesticide application optimization for freshwater preservation. UNIVERSWATER will further develop these local DSSs into a common platform where a set of DSS tools can be adapted to different situations after adjusting for local factors, thereby developing a modular, extensible, and holistic universal DSS.
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