A newsletter for the “Water Cycle and Soil Related Aspects” activities in
the European Commission Directorate General for Research
Dear Readers,
In July 2003 we published the first issue of the 'Water and Soil Times', an
e-newsletter dedicated to promote and disseminate information about
activities, RTD projects and results achieved within the thematic area
'Water and Soil related aspects' under FP6 as well as relevant FP5
projects. In total, 22 issues were sent to the interested community, the
last one reaching more than 3.200 subscribers. All published issues are
available for consultation and download at:
http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/ ...
The 7th Framework Programme will start next year. Therefore we intend to
focus the coming issues of a revised newsletter on subjects addressed by
the FP7 activity 'Environmental Technologies'. The enlarged scope will
address technologies which contribute to sustainable consumption and
production, help to deliver sustainable growth, providing eco-efficient
solutions to environmental problems at different scales and protect our
cultural and natural heritage.
I would like to sincerely thank all contributors and subscribers and hope
that we will succeed to maintain, and even enhance, the interest in this
publication in the future.
FP7 NEWS: Budget and decisions
The decisional process towards FP7 adoption is progressing smoothly,
the Council having adopted a common position on 25 September. The
indicative budget allocated to the theme Environment (including Climate
Change) within the Specific Programme 'Cooperation' is now 1.890 EUR
Million. Details about the FP7 decision process are available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/detail_doss ...
FP7 NEWS: Forthcoming call for experts:
The Commission shall appoint independent experts to assist with
evaluations of FP7 proposals. Consequently, a call for experts will be
launched in view to establish an appropriate database from where experts
shall be selected on the basis of required skills and knowledge.
The experts registered in the Experts Management Module for FP6 (
https://cordis.europa.eu/emmfp6/index. ... will
be invited to refresh their data by the end of November 2006.
HYDRATE - Hydrometeorological data resources and technologies
for effective flash flood forecasting.
The HYDRATE project was officially launched on 1st September 2006.
This 3-year FP6 specific target research project aims to improve the
scientific basis of flash flood forecasting by extending the understanding of
past flash flood events, advancing and harmonising a European-wide
innovative flash flood observation strategy and developing a coherent set of
technologies and tools for effective early warning systems. To this end, the
project includes actions on the organization of the existing flash flood data
patrimony across Europe. The observation strategy proposed in HYDRATE
has the objective to collect flash flood data by combining
hydrometeorological monitoring and the acquisition of complementary
information from post-event surveys. This will involve a network of existing
Hydrometeorological Observatories; all are placed in high flash flood
potential regions. HYDRATE will develop a freely-accessible European
Flash Flood Database to make the collected hydrometeorological data
available to the international research community. The final aim of
HYDRATE is to enhance the capability of flash flood forecasting in
ungauged basins by exploiting the extended availability of flash flood data
and the improved process understanding. Partners include nine
universities, seven government research centres and one SME. They
represent eight Member States, one Associated Candidate State and
three third countries. The results of HYDRATE will benefit thus from
assembling international knowledge and scientific expertise and lead to
advancements in observation strategy for implementation not only in
Europe but internationally.
For more information on the project contact the project coordinator, Prof.
Marco Borga (e-mail: marco.borga@unipd.it).
The FOOTPRINT Project: developing tools for pesticide risk
assessment and management in the EU
This FP6 'Scientific Support to Policies' project aims at developing a range
of tools which can be used to assess the risk of pesticides having an
impact on water resources and to investigate potential risk reduction
strategies. The 3 FOOT tools are designed to address the needs of
different stakeholders with regard to pesticides:
- extension services and farmers at the farm scale
- water quality managers at the catchment scale
- policy makers and registration authorities at national and EU scale.
The project has recently released a database containing environmental
fate and ecotoxicological data for all pesticides registered in the EU and
their metabolites ('The FOOTPRINT PPDB'). The project team is currently
finalising the development of a large number of agro-environmental
scenarios which will allow a classification of land in the EU according to
their potential to contaminate adjacent water resources.
Those interested in the project are invited to attend the FOOTPRINT
annual meeting (23-24 November 2006, Copenhagen) or to visit the project
web site at: www.eu-footprint.org
How EUGRIS can help you to prepare for the imminent call for
proposals for FP7?
A major challenge for those initiating or participating in FP7 projects is to
find the most suitable partners in Europe, associated states or target third
countries.
This is where EUGRIS (http://www.eugris.info), a portal dedicated to soil
and water related topics, can help as it has over 1,700 registered experts
in its “Who does What” Directory, including their contact details and
expertise.
EUGRIS can also support proposal development by:
- providing a dissemination platform
- providing access to past projects (and their outputs) so you can see
what has already been done
- providing contacts to other stakeholders (regulators, industry etc).
More information is available from:
http://www.eugris.info/DisplayNewsItem ...
PUBLICATIONS and AVAILABLE DOCUMENTS
'Water and Liberalisation. European Water Scenarios', edited by:
Matthias Finger, Jeremy Allouche, Patrícia Luís-Manso.
The publication is a result of the EC funded project EUROMARKET (FP5).
The key sections of the book concern:
1. An in depth introduction to the current situation in the WSS sector.
2. The European water supply and sanitation markets; the institutional
framework of the water supply and sanitation sector in the EU: a
comparative analysis; analysis of the EU explicit and implicit policies and
approaches in the sector; analysis of the strategies of the water operators
in Europe.
3. Scenarios on the evolution of the water sector in Europe.
4. Economic, environmental and social implications of the scenarios;
major implications per scenario.
More information about the publication is available at:
http://www.iwapublishing.com/template. ...
FP6 Integrated Project Aquastress – 2nd Newsletter is available
The AQUASTRESS project adopts a rather unique and definitely
challenging 'case study stakeholder driven' approach involving proactively
the acting community in the different stages of the decision-making
process. This powerful and responsive mechanism will induce robust
means for a real integrative water resources management.
The project is organised in three phases; (i) charact
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