Area 3: Environmental Technologies ( incl. technologies related to water and soil)

TEG 3.1: Sustainable and cost-effective policies and technologies on water uses (production, consumption, recycling) for preventing and reducing environmental risks on water and soils, controlling pollution, and balancing demand and supply

CALL LINE 1
Comparative studies of conventional and new agricultural practices (based on ecological knowledge) for supply, cropping and soil erosion prevention and development of DSS (Decision Support System) tools using new available information

Justification

Availability of water resources for meeting new and continuing demands of municipal, agricultural, industrial and environmental needs are increasingly recognised to be limited. Indeed many regions have reached full utilisation, or even over-utilisation, of their water resources. A similar analysis can be made of their soil resources, but unlike water the loss of soil is non-renewable and is a significant loss to agricultural areas where soil erosion is prevalent.
Although growing shortage of water resources is a concern right across Europe, where agriculture represents 30% of abstracted freshwater the twinning with loss of soil resources is a more crucial concern in East Europe. Romania and Bulgaria are examples of where this situation is important. Non-point pollution from cropping is another obvious stake.
There is a clear demand, particularly here, for research into optimising agricultural operations (irrigation, fertilization including the use of manure and sludge, crop protection, soil work) so as to optimise water and soil conservation whilst encouraging productive agriculture. A major benefit that could be achieved would be to improve the efficiency of water use in small-holder agricultural regions, presently inefficiently farmed, so that they utilise less water for the same agricultural production. The water thereby saved can be used to manage available water resources lower down the system. Decision support is the more needed that most farm in Europe are small SME's or family run enterprises.

General objectives

• Definition and assessment of available technology in agricultural practices
• Evaluation and use of available data sources
• Development of DSS needs

Specific objectives from the perspective of the New Member States

Development of agricultural practices appropriate for fragmented land-holdings.

Background / state-of-the-art

Use of traditional agricultural practices can cause the following problems – organic matter loss, soil erosion, soil and water pollution and impacts on biodiversity. To deal with those problems effectively, it is important to develop DSS systems and models. Although during FP6 significant progress has been made in understanding biological processes in soil, giving a new dimension for balancing supply and demand, however the information is still scarce about how new agricultural practices and their impact differ from the conventional practices (e.g. used in Central and Eastern Europe).

Ongoing and completed projects on issues raised

Decision support systems have been developed for IWRM processes at a range of levels. Similarly research has been carried out into soil erosion processes on soils bared by preparation of land for agriculture. Other research deals with fertilization and its impacts (such as FP5 Life Quality project QLK5-CT-2002-01138 "Bioprocessing of sewage sludge for safe recycling on agricultural land". However, little relevant information is available about optimizing agricultural operations to achieve the twin benefits of conserving soil at the same time and maximizing water utilization efficiency.

Priorities of FP7 and WSSTP SRA addressed by objectives:

The call line 1 corresponds to WSSTP pilot research area: Sustainable water management for agriculture. With regard to the proposed scheme for FP7 it refers to Activity II– Sustainable management of resources, priority 1 - Conservation and sustainable management of natural and man-made resources and Activity III – Environmental technologies, priority 1 - Environmental technologies for the sustainable management and conservation of the natural and man-made environment

Suggestion for most appropriate type of project:

Specific Support Action

Specific research highlights:

• Understanding biological processes in soils
• Accounting for spatial variability of soil and crop conditions
• Optimal frequency of nutrient and water measurement
• Managing fragmented fields with low-cost practices and technologies

Existing expertise

• Agricultural engineering
• Agronomy
• Crop science
• Crop water requirements
• Soil physics

Required expertise

• IWRM (Integrated Water Resoures Management) in agricultural areas
• Spatio-temporal optimization of agricultural water supply
• Conceptualisation of DSS suitable for use by land planners and farm managers

Gaps in knowledge

• There is a lack of information on the soil biological processes in relation to water and nutrient status
• There is a need for crop status variability assessment at the field scale
• Optimal frequency of nutrient and water measurement for developing the DSS

Societal, economic and European relevance

Many Central and Eastern European economies are still strongly agriculturally based, and a rationalisation is needed in order to ensure that :- (a) water resources are managed sustainable at a national level (for transboundary river basins); (b) national soil resources in productive areas are protected and conserved; and (c) the role of the respective agricultural sectors are reviewed with respect to what they can achieve under modern management norms rather than outdated systems that may still prevail.
In countries with limited productive outputs, stable agriculture is an important means to generate economic growth. Furthermore prudent water management in the agricultural sector that uses a large proportion of the water budget can result in large water savings to pass on to other sectors.