Water Scarcity in South
EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing, Athena Research Centre, BioAzul and TuDelf joint forces to face the real challenges around water scarcity.
The objective of this programme is to enhance knowledge and overcome current barriers to tackle water scarcity in Southern Europe through innovation, entrepreneurship, education and communication.
Water is a precondition to life on Earth and essential for a sustainable socioeconomic development, food security and healthy ecosystems. The growing population, the demographic changes, massive urbanisation trends and climate change, among other factors, are increasing pressure over the available water resources.
This programme carries out a series of activities, from research to innovation and education, to joint efforts and effectively find the appropriate solutions to water shortages in Southern regions, for Europe to lead the way towards a more sustainable future. The long-term objective of the Water Scarcity programme is to ease the transition to a water saving economy across Southern Europe and contribute to reducing Europe’s water consumption and wastage by:
- Fostering Innovation & Entrepreneurship by supporting scaleups and SMEs offering solutions to tackle specific water-related challenges faced by several stakeholders in their daily operations (i.e. improved irrigation methods and infrastructures; resilient crops and crop management techniques; leakage reduction; usage prediction; pollutants detection and monitoring, etc.).
- Creating a strong experts’ community to progress on the key challenges to tackle water scarcity, with a special focus on Water Governance, Financial Schemes and Legal Enforcement and establishing solid partnerships with relevant stakeholders.
- Sharing knowledge to build capabilities to business and individuals to ensure the environmental sustainability of any business and of our daily activities (i.e. industrial players, farmers, citizens), fostering the adoption of a water saving culture among final users in Europe.
All of it will result in:
Overall, the programme will strengthen local innovations and will contribute to the economic and social progress in modest and moderated innovation countries as sufficient and good-quality water supply is a prerequisite for socioeconomic development.
Download the reports to see everything achieved in the past years: