The Eurecat technology centre is coordinating the European RECREATE project, which on a €3.4 million budget is to evaluate new strategies for integrating alternative water resources into the water cycle such as reuse, desalination and rainwater harvesting with the aim of improving resilience in management and ensuring its availability in response to the impact of climate change.
Specifically, the RECREATE project will help to generate the knowledge required to build tools that enable appropriate infrastructure planning and management to secure water availability and quality in climate change scenarios by adopting technology and solutions that make it possible to draw the resource from alternative sources.
Water scarcity “is a global problem due to climate change and population growth,” says Xavier Martínez Lladó, director of Eurecat’s Water, Air and Soils Unit. “Climate change is dramatically altering precipitation regimes across Europe. For example, the Mediterranean basin is experiencing the effects of a three-year drought, the worst since records began, and these situations are expected to become more frequent in the coming decades.”
Against this background, ‘‘ensuring the availability of water through alternative sources such as reuse, desalination and rainwater harvesting is the only option to avoid jeopardising the socio-economic development of the areas hit by water scarcity.’’
Digu Aruchamy, Eurecat’s European project coordinator and RECREATE project coordinator, adds that one of the main goals is to “help raise the awareness of the public, local authorities and policymakers about the potential of alternative water resources in their water management strategies.”
The project will be rolled out in four regional case studies representative of European bioregions and their water contexts. Specifically, they will take place on the Costa Brava; in North Holland, in the Netherlands; in Kalundborg, Denmark, and on Syros, Greece.
Drawing on the case studies, the project will produce an open access repository of AI-based knowledge, technologies and tools to support decision-making and compliance with future regulations which it is hoped will improve the availability of water and make it possible to deal with future scarcity scenarios tied to climate change.
The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme and involves a consortium of 11 partners from five European countries.
