Universal interoperative sustainable agri-water management platform

• Forschungsstelle: SBFI
• Projektnummer: 24.00391

Abstract (Englisch)

Water quality and quantity are under arising pressure from agricultural activities that may cause overexploitation of natural waters andpollutants runoffs (e.g., nutrients, pesticides). These stresses are also compounded by climate change effects. To address the complexchallenges of agri-water management, the UNIVERSWATER consortium will adopt a ‘system of systems’ approach by developing andimproving technologies designed to optimise water resources uses in a fully integrated way. A dedicated interdisciplinary and intersectoralconsortium of 15 partners from six European countries will: a) develop innovative portable and in-situ sensors for a number of parametersand pollutants (salinity, nutrients, CEC, microbiological indicators) and b) couple them with earth observation imaging and advancedexplainable and robust artificial intelligence techniques, as well as c) develop cost-effective, sustainable methods based on naturebasedand technology-based solutions for water remediation at the point of need and d) promote the adoption of the developed methodsthrough pricing incentive provision. These technologies will be integrated into decision support systems (DSSs) that will be tested atthree case studies tackling on-farm treatment of dairy soiled water, mitigation of soil salination through water reuse, and optimisationof fertiliser/pesticide application for freshwater preservation. Going beyond, UNIVERSWATER will upscale these local DSSs into acommon platform where a suite of DSS tools can be adapted to different situations after being tailored to the local factors, therebydeveloping a modular, extensible and holistic universal DSS.