Network for the exchange of methodologies and expertise on sustainable water and land management in the Mediterranean

Improve water planning and management for enhancing water supplies, with sensitivity to local physical, economic, and cultural conditions in MPC. Implementation of tools and methods suited to global management of water related risks including assistance for the dissemination and transposition of procedures, norms and concepts of the European Water Directive.

The global objective of SOWAMED proposal is to establish a methodology exchange network and build an expertise capacity between partners in several research projects (STREP and/or CA) of the INCO-MED Program under the 4th, 5th, and 6th PCRD in the domain of sustainable "land and water" resource management and the prevention of risks on cultivated and inhabited watersheds.

The first step will be to identify and analyze, data, models and DSS available for soil and water management in the semi arid Mediterranean areas. It will base on the results produced by the INCO MED projects during the ten last years. The second step will be to test and discuss the availability of data, models or DSS set for particular conditions. The definition of their areas of competence and limits will help to make available to all users the range of methods and available tools for proposing solutions to questions of sustainable water management and land husbandry. The third step consists in reinforcing capacities of expertise and dissemination of data and methods.

These objectives will be achieved through regional workshops focusing on three specific issues: the management of cultivated watersheds in mountains and hills (water conservation management and land husbandry); the management of traditional irrigated perimeters (small and medium hydraulic works SMH) and intensive irrigation systems; and the management of water and land uses especially in peri-urban agricultural perimeters (competition for land and the use of non-conventional water resources). 

Finally, this SSA project will serve to support different laboratories to define new research activities focussing on the thematic issue of water and soil management according to global changes.

The contribution of SOWAMED will be to:

•    Assemble, compare and capitalize on the results of previous projects achieved in the field of “integrated management of limited water resources”;
•    Disseminate and make available practical information that has been validated by scientific results;
•    Ensure adequate training for the use of this information;
•    Share data bases and modelling tools to develop projects for sustainable land and water resources management.