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Project

Innovative tools enabling drinking WATER PROTECTion in rural and urban environments (WATERPROTECT)

Main research question/goal

How can farmers in Europe be better and more effectively involved in improving water quality in catchments for drinking water? The European Horizon2020 project 'WaterProtect' focuses on one factor regarding the problem of improving the surface water quality, namely the persistent diffuse pollution of drinking water sources by agriculturally used pesticides and fertilizers. The aim is to achieve an improvement by intensively involving (from the bottom up) the various stakeholders (water companies, farmers, NGOs, plant protection product manufacturers, consumer organizations, government agencies, etc.) in the realization of efficient, innovative agricultural systems. 
Having sufficient water of good quality available in all seasons is vital. However, more than half of Europe's rivers and lakes are in a reduced ecological status and about 25% of Europe's groundwater has a poor chemical composition. This reduced quality remains unchanged to date despite the efforts of various policy areas to promote safe and clean water.


Research approach

The approach focuses on more horizontal water management practices. Through a multi-actor setting and through innovative tools, actors are empowered to monitor, finance and then effectively implement management practices and measures to protect water resources. 
Within the project, there are a total of seven action labs with a multi-actor setting. Each one evaluates the feasibility and uptake of science-based solutions to improve and protect the water quality of drinking water sources. ILVO is the leader of the work package on 'water governance'. ILVO looks for successful strategies to achieve good water quality. We start from the mindshift that water quality should not only be managed by (the different levels/domains of) government, but also by private actors. ILVO is responsible for drawing up a 'framework for the development and analysis of water governance systems', for steering the governance research in the various action labs in the right direction and, based on a comparative study between the various action labs, for identifying characteristics, opportunities and limitations for good water-governance systems.
The concrete approach includes:

  • Harmonizing and making available datasets of measurement data on pesticides and nutrients in water sources through the design of participatory monitoring.
  • Integrating existing data and generating new data to gain a better understanding of the system.
  • Naming, developing and designing good farming practices and demonstration of these innovative farming systems that deliver good water quality.
  • Development of a user-friendly web tool in which the measurement data and map material (hydrological network, soil maps, land use, elevation maps,...) are brought together with the aim of displaying in a simple way the link between the use of GBM/fertilization and water pollution.

Finally, ILVO is also strongly involved in the scaling up of the results to a European level.


Relevance/Valorisation

This project is now complete and has yielded promising results. ILVO has prepared a governance guide to support good agricultural practices to protect drinking water sources. In it, there are three cyclical steps: governance assessment of the current situation, process implementation to realize the ambitions and assessment of the results. The approach has been used and fine-tuned in the actions labs to obtain real improvements in water quality in water catchment areas. The tool can stimulate a better (less top down) local governance system. 

Date:1 Jun 2017 →  30 Sep 2020