1. Anna Kuczyńska, PGI-NRI
Innovative tools enabling drinking WATER PROTECTion in rural environments
Duration: June 2017-May 2020
Good Morning,
My name is Anna Kuczyńska, I am from the PGI-NRI. I would like to introduce you to a project we are involved in, which is focused on protection of water quality in rural areas with heavy agricultural inputs. I actually think this project links very well to what we have discussed here yesterday on interactions between WFD with DWD as well as WFD and agricultural policies and will be a valuable inpunt to the commission on these issues. Perhaps I will manage to convince Manuel Sapiano that there isn’t a fine line between WFD and agricultural measures.
So, the project is called WATERPROTECT Innovative tools anabling drinking water protection in rural environments and it is funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme; Grant agreement No
The project started in June 2017 and will last untill May 2020.
Anna Kuczyńska, PGI-NRI
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

2. PESTICIDE and nutrient POLLUTION of drinking water sources IS A CONTINUING CONCERN …
Occurrence and exceedance of selected pesticides in groundwater monitoring stations, (Source: Eurostat)
Points of concern:
Hot-spots of exceedance across Europe (>0.1 μg/l)
Hot-spots = intensive agriculture
Pollution sources are diffuse, monitoring and treatment costly
Poor information across Europe
Mitigation measures are not in place, or not effective and need farmer engagement
The reasoning for the project was that according to water quality monitoring data, water quality in rural areas have not really improved much over the years. Despite many legal measures introduced to water and agricultural sectors over the past decades with an aim to reduce nutrients and pesticide pollution, there seem to be still many hot spots of high nutrient and pesticide concentrations.
This was also confirmed yesterday during presentation by the EEA, which shows that pesticides and nitrates are still major pollutants causing groundwater bodies to fell into a category of poor.
This led us to a conclusion that legal requirements set towards protection of water resources from agricultural inputs are poorly implemented in ground, they are not working properly and so this project was developed to….
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

3. OBJECTIVES OF WATERPROTECT
“Contribute to effective uptake and realisation of management practices and mitigation measures to protect drinking water resources”
Action ! In local “action labs” across EU (BE, IE, DK, IT, ES, PL, RO)
New governance: alternative financing
Share data: participatory monitoring
Best management into practice
Bring information close to actor using ICT
“Upscale findings from action labs to other regions”
“Advise policy makers: WFD, CAP, nitrate and pesticide directives”
“Strategic communication to stakeholders and dissemination to the public”
contribute to effective uptake and realisation of management practices and mitigation measures focused on protection of drinking water resources in rural area
The project is realised through practice and is realised in parallel at 7 action labs across Europe. All of them are agricultural catchments with heavy production, located in different climatic conditions and having different farming practices. Action Labs are located in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Spain and Poland.
Main objectives set for the project is to analyse existing water governance models and identify their bottlenecks and strenghts in order to develop better water governance strategies. This includes analysis of existing regulations and practice in fields of water management, environmental monitoring and control as well as agricultural practices such as implementation of best management practices and mittigation measures.
This will lead us to assesmment of efectiveness of each of these components and will strear us towards developing recommendations for the new, integrated water governance models within our pilot catchments, which then could be upscalled to other regions of similar characteristics and give input to policy intruments on national and EU levels.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

4. ACTION LAB - Multi actorS APPROACH
Knowledge
Easy access for actors to information
(ICT tools)
Measures
towards improved groundwater and surface water quality
Better
systems knowledge of
resources
Improved stakeholder
engagement
Implementation
of measures
& improved water quality
Are part of
New governance
The project is realised in accordance to a methodology called Multi Actors Approach, which basically means that we try to develop interactions between different stakeholders within our catchments in order to develop water governance models that will respect needs of different stakeholders such as:
institusions responsible for water management at local and national levels,
farmers,
farmer’s advisory boards,
water producers,
institutions responsible for monitoring and controling the state of environment,
local administrations
and society.
We try to engange them all the way through the project, them being not only sources of our information or audiences at our meetings and trainings, but also them being active participants of our work, who are contributing to decision making process.
The idea behind is that, if we get people involved in developing the governance strategies through participation in project meetings, monitoring campaigns, trainings evaluation of best managemnet practices, then they get more engaged in the process in a long term.
We try to educate and raise awaraness of stakeholders by organising workshops with representatives of diffirent groups, who can express freely their vews and exchange knowledge between themselves.
Define & set rules for
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

5. Participatory monitoring in 7 action labs
Designing, aligning and bringing together monitoring data from:
Scientists
Environment agencies
Drinking water companies
Local farmers
Local citizens
complexity
Local engagement
Local actors become more engaged
in the monitoring and they trust the results.
One of work packages of this project is dedicated to intergrating of monitoring strategies within catchments, bringing all monitoring data that is available to one common database and encouraging people to work together in order to develop better, more focused monitoring strategies, share their data, rationalise costs of monitoring; and also get people involved and more interested in results of monitoring.
By doing that we want to show farmers how their actions actually impact water quality, which further impacts quality of their produce and quality of water they drink. We hope that when they realise that, they will be more willing to implement BMPs and mittigation measures, and that the mittigation measures being implemented will better chosen for the purpose and catchments characteristics.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

6. Best management practices
Engage actors to implement measures !
Diffuse sources: Bufferstrips
Mgt practices
Dams, pools
Treatment point
sources
And this is a focuse of onother work package, which is dedicated to assessment of farming practices and best mannagement practices applied within our pilot catchments.
By analysis of monitoring results we will assess effectiveness of applied mittigation methods as well as we will develop recomendations for all action labs which methods should or should not be applied to reach governance models that we develop in the project.
It is also envisaged that some new mittigation measures will be employed at action labs during the lengh of the project.
and
Methodology for developing BMPs recommendations depending on natural conditions and farming practices is also planned to be developed.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

7. COLLABORATIVE TOOLS (GIS + MODELS)
Harmonised data
Easy access
Link action to water quality
Visualise landscape
Show impact of behaviour
Each action lab will also develop a collaborative tool that will be available to all our stakeholders that would like to use it in order to rationalise their actions within the catchment.
The idea is to bring all relevant data from different sources into one place, make it available to all, accertain easy acces to data, visualise the actual status of water quality and link it to actions and impacts.
The tool is being developed with close cooperation with stakeholders which are involved in defining their needs with respect to the tool.
These tools will be available to all parties via internet.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

8. INTEGRATED POLICY SUPPORT
Report on policy instruments highlighting the policy related water quality driving factors as well as the level of integration of water and agricultural policies in the case study areas - The report will look at the management system and policies in place, see where the policies are likely to have the biggest positive or negative impact and will recommend improvements
Report on EU policy (including the CAP) and national policy recommendations for drinking water management involving farming systems and land management - The set of policy recommendations will be based on the consultations and opinion expressed during the three regional water policy conferences:
The role of EU policies and specifically the cross-compliance system of the CAP in addressing drinking water management challenges – DECEMBER 2018 in Brussels
Main elements for a long term strategy for the drinking-water management involving farming systems and land-use management – JUNE 2019 in Poland
Local policies, initiatives and partnerships making a positive contribution to the drinking water management involving farming systems – OCTOBER 2019 in Italy
WaterProtect aims to provide integrative guidelines and policy recommendations that incorporate sustainable water management into existing farming systems and land management and that are based on both the ongoing stakeholder debates at European level and the specific real-life assessments made in the study areas.
We envisaged three water policy conferences throughout the lenghth of the project.
Three regional policy conferences:
The role of EU policies and specifically the cross-compliance system of the CAP in addressing drinking water management challenges – Belgium December 2018
Main elements for a long term strategy for the drinking-water management involving farming systems and land-use management – Poland June 2019
Local policies, initiatives and partnerships making a positive contribution to the drinking water management involving farming systems – October 2019 Italy
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

9. Characteristics water partnership
Action lab actors (17 local project partners)
Environment Agencies
Drinking water producers
Consumer organisations
Local communities
Farmers advisory
Action lab stakeholders (30 local organisations signed letters of Support)
Water management authorities
Local rural networks
Farmers unions
Fertilizer and plant protection products industry
NGO’s and nature conservation
Ministeries: environment, agriculture
EU level stakeholders (WaterProtect Advisory Board)
COPA-COGECA (Farmers)
ECPA (Plant protection industry)
CEEP (Water producers)
BelFertil (Fertilizer industry)
EFBW (Mineral Water Bottlers)
EU policy (DG ENV and DG AGRI)
EIP Agri
EIP Water
27 partners in consorcium
7 Action labs in 7 EU countries
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

10. Waterprotect CORE PARTNERS
Project management
Multi-actor management
Upscaling to EU
Romanian action lab
Belgian action lab
Danish action lab
Polish action lab
Irish action lab
Italian action lab
Spanish action lab
I also would like to aknowledge my partners….
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018

11. www.water-protect.eu MORE INFORMATION
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No
34th CIS WG Groundwater Meeting, Bern, 25/04/2018