Africn Water is an initiative funded by the European Community with the aim to increase the involvement of African researchers in the water related components of EU funding programmes for research and development.

AquaTerra is an integrated project of the 6th EU RTD Framework Programme that aims to provide the scientific basis for an improved river basin management through a better understanding of the river-sediment-soil-groundwater system as a whole, by integrating both natural and socio-economics aspects at different temporal and spatial scales. This should be applicable to European contexts facing modifications or changes due to Climate Change, Land Use and pollution of soil and water.

The CityNet project cluster of six individual research and development projects (2001-2005) deals with water management in urban areas (water supply, sewerage, drainage) including their urban/rural interfaces (raw water sources, receiving waters, groundwater). The partnership consists of 60 research institutions and 56 end-users, thus comprising a significant part of the European R&D capacity and implementation potential in urban water systems.

CLEANSOIL is an INCO (Specific Measures in Support of International Co-operation) Project funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme 2002-2006, which deals with dedicated international co-operation activities which are relevant to some groups of countries or regions and which are not addressed by the 7 thematic priorities of FP6. These specific international co-operation activities give support in particular to the Community's external relations and development aid policies.

ECOnetus project aims to provide support for networks creation in the field of Environment (including Climate Change) in Europe and to establish strong cooperation between participants from Member, New Member and Associate Candidate Countries. Project's consortium consists of: Poland, Lithuania (representatives of New MC and ACC), the UK and Austria (representatives of MC). In this project Poland and Lithuania will act as a bridge between New MC, ACC and MC while promotion of this project in MC will be assured by other partners. Good relations with Contact Points from other New MC and ACC countries will ensure efficient project results dissemination.

The EUGRIS portal is a web based user-friendly information platform for contaminated land and groundwater information. EUGRIS allows all stakeholders from industry, administration and research equal access to information of high quality. EUGRIS offers technical content and overviews of policy and regulations, management schemes, research funding, research projects and their outputs and library & links on a European and national level.

European Network of Freshwater Research Organizations

Euro-Limpacs is a €20m Integrated Project funded by the EU designed to assess the effects of future global change on Europe's freshwater ecosystems. The project is co-ordinated by the Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London and has 36 partners. The research programme is relevant to the EU Water Framework Directive and other European and international directives and protocols and supports the EU's charter on Sustainable Development.

European Rivers Network

At the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (WSSD), the EU launched a Water Initiative (EUWI) designed to contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and WSSD targets for drinking water and sanitation, within the context of an integrated approach to water resources management. The EUWI is conceived as a catalyst and a foundation on which future action can be built to contribute to meeting the water and sanitation MDGs.

The Harmoni-CA is a large-scale concerted action, meaning that it does not carry out a research project, but syntheses available knowledge with the help of knowledge providers such as researchers. It exists in the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), which provides a European policy basis for water management and the elaboration of policies for river basins. Typical actions of Harmoni-CA are meetings and workshops, leading to synthesis reports and guidances.

MODELKEY - Models for Assessing and Forecasting the Impact of Environmental Key Pollutants on Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems and Biodiversity
One of the driving forces for an insufficient ecological status and reduced biodiversity of freshwater and marine ecosystems is chemical stress due to environmental pollutants. The WFD classifies the quality status of aquatic ecosystems based on traditional hydromorphological, physico-chemical, biological parameters and priority pollutant (PP) concentrations. This procedure allows a rough quality assessment. However, a reliable diagnosis, prediction and forecasting of toxic impacts on aquatic ecosystems and an efficient mitigation of toxic risks demand for an identification of the respective stressors and for reliable cause-effect relationships between chemical pollution and biodiversity decline. To date severe gaps of knowledge impede the evaluation and mitigation of the causes for an insufficient ecological status in many aquatic ecosystems. MODELKEY is designed to bridge these knowledge gaps.

The complexity of current water resource management poses many challenges. Water managers need to solve a range of interrelated water dilemmas, such as balancing water quantity and quality, flooding, drought, maintaining biodiversity and ecological functions and services, in a context where human beliefs, actions and values play a central role. Furthermore, the growing uncertainties of global climate change and the long term implications of management actions make the problems even more difficult. NeWater addresses some of the present and future challenges of water management. The project recognizes the value of highly integrated solutions and advocates integrated water resource management (IWRM) concepts. However, NeWater is based on the hypothesis that IWRM cannot be realized unless current water management regimes undergo a transition towards more adaptive water management.

Risk-base - Risk Based Management of River Basins
The objective of RISKBASE is to review and synthesise the outcome of EC FP4-FP6 projects, and other major initiatives, related to integrated risk assessment-based management of the water/sediment/soil system at the river-basin scale.

Technology enabled universal access to safe water TECHNEAU, an integrated project funded by the European Commission, challenges the ability of traditional system and technology solutions for drinking water supply to cope with present and future global threats and opportunities. This will be initiated through rethinking of current water supply options and by providing researched and demonstrated new and improved technologies for the whole water supply chain.

The main objective of Web-based European Knowledge Network on Water WEKNOW - the concerted action - is to establish a network to link EU Member States and pre-accession and associated countries for the exchange of knowledge in order to contribute to the supply of safe and wholesome drinking water to all European citizens. The project will maximise the impact of European research and efforts in all areas related to drinking water.

The Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WSSTP) is one of the technology platforms that are set up within the European Environmental Technology Action Plan (ETAP) that was adopted by the European Commission in 2004. It is a European initiative, open to all stakeholders involved in European water supply and sanitation and major end-user groups.