Water quality and quantity are under arising pressure from agricultural activities that may cause overexploitation of natural waters and pollutants runoffs (e.g., nutrients, pesticides). These stresses are also compounded by climate change effects. To address the complex challenges of agri-water management, the UNIVERSWATER consortium will adopt a ‘system of systems’ approach by developing and improving technologies designed to optimise water resources uses in a fully integrated way. A dedicated interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium of 15 partners from six European countries will: a) develop innovative portable and in-situ sensors for a number of parameters and pollutants (salinity, nutrients, CEC, microbiological indicators) and b) couple them with earth observation imaging and advanced explainable and robust artificial intelligence techniques, as well as c) develop cost-effective, sustainable methods based on nature-based and technology-based solutions for water remediation at the point of need and d) promote the adoption of the developed methods through pricing incentive provision. These technologies will be integrated into decision support systems (DSSs) that will be tested at three case studies tackling on-farm treatment of dairy soiled water, mitigation of soil salination through water reuse, and optimisation of fertiliser/pesticide application for freshwater preservation. Going beyond, UNIVERSWATER will upscale these local DSSs into a common platform where a suite of DSS tools can be adapted to different situations after being tailored to the local factors, thereby developing a modular, extensible and holistic universal DSS.

BLUE4ALL will align top-down regulatory demands about European (networks of) MPAs with bottom-up societal expectations as a guarantee for achieving effective, efficient and resilient MPAs and networks of MPAs which meet EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 objectives. By mobilizing stakeholders from BLUE4ALL’s 25 information sites and Living Labs, i.e. locations across the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea and the North-East Atlantic regions where (networks of) MPAs have been established and from which lessons learned can be drawn about success and failure relative to how challenges were tackled, we will co-create robust and replicable social, governance, ecological and environmental tools to meet conservation and/or restoration objectives in socially sustainable and acceptable ways. These science-based tools will be tested in Living Labs, i.e. locations where (networks of) MPAs are in the process of establishment and where these tools can be fed into the ongoing MPA process. The operationalized and tested frameworks will ultimately be generalized into a Blueprint Platform for the co-creation of effective, efficient and resilient (networks of) MPAs. This scheme will separate generically encountered challenges and applied solutions from MPA (network)-specific challenges and solutions and develop guidance in a user-friendly manner to end-users (i.e. MPA (network) managers and authorities). This guidance will take the shape of an interactive web-based Blueprint Platform directing the end-users to those challenges and solutions most applicable to their site(s). User-friendliness and applicability will be maximized by cross-checking the Blueprint Platform development with the actors and stakeholders of the Living Labs throughout the whole process of its development. Knowledge transfer and interaction with stakeholders and society-at-large at local to regional scales will lead to the development of a platform for MPA networking to interact with communities of practice boosting the BLUE4ALL legacy to its ultimate goal to restore our oceans and waters.