Water scarcity, population growth, and climate change put immense pressure on global water resources, challenging human health, environmental sustainability, and economic development. DECIRE-WATER addresses these issues by demonstrating innovative, scalable, and circular water and wastewater management solutions at five sites in Europe and one in South Africa. The project will provide pioneering, affordable, and sustainable decentralised systems, designed to function independently or integrated with centralised infrastructure, predominantly based on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) but also incorporating technical processes. By project completion, our solutions will reach TRL 7-8 and be tailored to diverse geographic, climatic, and socio-economic conditions. Advanced monitoring technologies and digital tools will be incorporated to demonstrate that DECIRE-WATER can achieve the required level of safety and reliability, which is critical for achieving regulatory approval, public acceptance, and eventual market adoption. We will engage stakeholders through co-design and co-creation, fostering acceptance and market uptake, while developing a decision framework to guide policymakers. Public-private partnerships will also be explored to test sustainable business models. Our long-term impact by 2035, is to operate the DECIRE-WATER systems which will collectively drive €60 million in revenues and create 200 jobs in the water sector. In addition, our solutions will collectively benefit 7% of the European population by reclaiming over 7.8 million m³ of water annually, with estimated energy savings amounting to 751,300 MWh/year. By aligning with EU priorities on climate resilience, water security, and sustainability, DECIRE-WATER is well-positioned to meet global water management challenges, ensuring long-term impact and success.

Climate change is exacerbating the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts worldwide. Despite this pressing reality, there exists a widespread underestimation of drought risk among the European population. In this critical context, wetlands emerge as a promising solution for enhancing water management and mitigating the impact of severe droughts, since they store a large portion of the Earth's freshwater and have the potential to recharge local aquifers. Despite the increasing recognition of wetlands as NBS, there remains a lack of comprehensive quantitative evidence and understanding regarding their cost-effectiveness under different European conditions. The objective of the NBS4Drought initiative is to systematically demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of wetland-based NBS in sustainable water management, particularly in alleviating the impacts of extreme droughts, and to expedite their widespread adoption across Europe. The outcomes will underscore the efficiency, replicability, and sustainability of NBS across diverse regions, furnishing stakeholders with compelling technical, economic, and social evidence to advocate for NBS in climate change adaptation strategies. To achieve this, 7 different wetland showcases identified from 5 distinct bioclimatic zones in Europe have been selected and will undergo a collaborative co-creation and co-development process, ensuring community involvement and the long-term maintenance of these NBS. The data gathered from the advanced monitoring program will drive hydrological, life cycle and socioeconomic assessments to demonstrate their cost-effectiveness, alongside the development of tools and policies to facilitate their replication throughout Europe. Citizen science initiatives and a multi-stakeholder approach, coupled with a robust communication and exploitation strategy, will be pivotal in fostering capacity building across European nations.

PROMISCES will identify how industrial pollution prevents the deployment of the circular economy (CE) in the EU and which strategies help overcome key bottlenecks to deliver the ambitions of the European Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan. PROMISCES considers specific CE routes including (i) semi-closed water cycles for drinking water supply at urban and catchment scale; (ii) wastewater reuse for irrigation in agriculture; (iii) nutrient recovery from sewage sludge; (iv) material recovery from dredged sediment and (v) land remediation for safe reuse in urban areas. To reach its goals, PROMISCES will: - Develop new analytical methods and toxicological tools to provide data on persistent, mobile (PM) substances (i.e. PFAS and other industrial chemicals) in complex environmental matrices. - Explore sources and environmental pathways of PM substances released from (i) soil; (ii) sediment; (iii) landfills; (iv) wastewater treatment plants and via (v) urban runoff into relevant environmental compartments (soil, sediment, surface water, groundwater). - Assess fate and transport pathways within the different CE routes and evaluate the impacts of corrective measures. - Improve the assessment and management of human health risks from drinking water and agricultural products. - Develop and demonstrate cost-efficient and sustainable technologies for the removal of PM substances from different media. - Translate PROMISCES results into guidance for efficient and feasible management of PM substances and recommendations for the implementation of relevant EU policy strategies and directives. - Integrate the results into a decision support framework which considers resource recovery and water reuse and supports chemical management decisions with regards to i) stakeholders and societal demands; ii) PM chemical properties iii) technical solutions to prevent, mitigate and remediate industrial pollution and iv) the whole life cycle of current and future chemicals.

With the objectives of the Green Deal in mind, COSMIC aims to provide IT systems that address large-scale energy resource optimization challenges by leveraging AI and data solutions. It will foster collaboration between small and large companies to create industrial ecosystems, focused on key applications with the potential for substantial and escalable impact. COSMIC´s ecosystems are composed by 1) large-industries - facilitating big datasets and large-scale pilots, 2) core technical partners - providing transversal-to-sector technical solutions, 3) SMEs and start-ups – bringing specific data/AI based assets through open calls. The project will offer a set of data/AI based platforms, solutions and modules as transversal core infrastructures able to accommodate external IT assets. Third Parties, mainly SMEs and start-ups, will bring these assets in the form of data/AI based services and solutions, that are specific-to an energy resources optimization key applications. The integration of these core and application-oriented technologies will result in a set of Integrated AI Systems (IAIS) for Key Energy Resource Optimization Applications capable to scale-up to cover more key applications. COSMIC will test these systems in 14 large-scale pilots in 5 countries: Spain, Belgium, Portugal, France and Finland, and at European level, together with the validation of end-user and final beneficiaries' acceptance of social-science methods. To foster replicability, a package will be offer including the lessons learned and recommendations for future adoption, including suggestions for feasible win-win industrial partnerships, and guidance on ecosystems sustainability. These ambitious objectives will be realized by a consortium of experienced and highly complementary partners from both research institutions, industrial partners, public authorities and NGOs from eight European countries.

The Med-IREN project aims to provide actionable demonstration on how to climate proof the Mediterranean critical infrastructures, across critical sectors, by introducing NBS both in terms of improving climate risk management and sustaining their business continuity to extreme climate change. The project will be showcased in five lighthouse regions across the Mediterranean, each corresponding to a present day challenge, that are aligned with regional policies and can constitute the EU as a global leader in the field. Med-IREN will cover different and diverse types of CI (energy, transport, water, ICT, social) , priority climate hazards within the Mediterranean, which is a climate hot-spot, and NBS interventions. In parallel, the interventions and solutions will be replicated into four more regions across the EU, covering the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Boreal regions. Med-IREN will also provide evidence how key enabling conditions, such as participatory governance and citizen engagement, novel forms of financing, innovative urban/landscape planning and capacity building will support regional systemic transformation nd provide the upscaling and replication mechanism within Mediterranean regions and beyond. A high-end digital decision making support toolset will be developed, integrating data from multiple sources, both in-situ and E.O., applying state-of-the-science models, as well as providing unprecedented visualization and sensemaking capabilities for understanding and quantifying resilience through-out the infrastructure and NBS life-cycle. Med-IREN will rely on the integration of the research output of more than 15 European and National projects, that focused on the (climate) resilience of infrastructures, regional adaptation and implementation of NBS. Med-IREN is conceived as a powerful showcase of the EU twin green & digital transition and an immediate success story of the EU Green Deal.