Water and Soil Times - Issue 9

WATER AND SOIL TIMES – Issue 9, November 2004

A newsletter for the “Water Cycle and Soil Related Aspects” activities in the European Commissions Directorate General for Research.

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NEW CALL OPENED

A new call for proposals for “Scientific Support to Policy” was opened on 30 October 2004. Full details of the call, including the work programme, detailed task descriptions and the guide for proposers, are available on CORDIS at . The deadline for submission of proposals is 1 February 2005 at 17.00 (Brussels local time).

The call contains research tasks within a wide variety of research areas. Readers of this newsletter may be interested in the following areas of the workprogramme:

- 1.5. Environmental assessment (soil, water, air, noise, including the effects ofchemical substances)

- 1.6. Assessment of environmental technologies for support of policy decisions, inparticular concerning effective but low-cost technologies in the context offulfilling environmental legislation

- 3.4. Forecasting and developing innovative policies for sustainability in themedium and long term

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RESEARCH THEMES IN FP7

The European Commission is undertaking a process to identify thematic domains for future European support under the 7th Framework Programme.The Commission wishes to identify areas which should continue from the Sixth Framework Programme as well as new and emerging areas.

The Commission welcomes contributions to the debate on identifying future thematic domains from the research community and users of research, including: research organisations and associations; industrial and sector associations; individual universities, enterprises and research institutes; and all individuals and groups with an interest in research.

Further details can be found at

To ensure that they can be properly included in the analysis, the Commission would welcome contributions as early as possible and by no later than the end of 2004.

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VITAL SOIL - THE NEXT STEP TOWARDS A EUROPEAN SOIL STRATEGY

The Dutch EU Presidency is organising a joint conference with DG Environment as a milestone towards the adoption of the Thematic Strategy on Soil protection.

This conference will take place on 18 and 19 November in Scheveningen/The Hague, The Netherlands. Additional information as well as registration forms can be found at

The "Scientific basis for the management of European soil resources - The Research Agenda" which has been developed within the Technical Working Group "Research" of the Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection will be presented at the conference. The findings and conclusions of this working group have been summarised in form of a brochure for wide dissemination. Scientific-technical questions related to the contents of this brochure will be answered by the secretariat of the European Confederation of Soil Science Societies (ECSSS) at the Institute of Soil Research, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences,University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), located in Vienna, Austria, mailto:

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DANUBS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

An International Conference is being organised by the daNUbs project consortium to take place in Vienna on 16 December 2004 at the Vienna University of Technology. The conference is part of the FP5 daNUbs project “Nutrient Management in the Danube Basin and its impact on the Black Sea”.

The conference is dedicated to the comprehensive presentation of the final results of the daNUbs project bringing together the investigations in catchments, the nutrient transport in the rivers and the interactions with the Western Black Sea.

More information and a registration form on the project site:

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AQUATERRA, A NEW INTEGRATED PROJECT IN FP 6

As one of the first environmental Integrated Projects in the EU Framework Programme 6, ‘AquaTerra’ is active since the 1st of June 2004 for a time period of 5 years. The project hosts a multidisciplinary team of 45 partner organisations in 12 EU countries as well as in Romania, Switzerland and Serbia. The scientific management is carried out by the Center for Applied Geosciences at the University of Tübingen (ZAG), while the financial and administrative management is ensured by the associated company Attempto GmbH.

The project integrates across various disciplines that range from Geosciences, Environmental Engineering and Chemistry to Socio-Economic sciences. Selected field sites will be studied in five European river basins (Brévilles, Ebro, Meuse, Elbe and Danube). The project also involves practitioners and end-users such as policy-makers, river basin managers and regional and urban land planners. The principal task of AquaTerra is to provide the foundations for improved soil and water management at catchment and river basin scales. This will be achieved by introducing new numerical models of the groundwater-soil-sediment-river system. These models will be based on various biogeochemical, climatologically, and material flux data and will allow to anticipate adverse trends in soil functioning and the water cycle. The models will also integrate key biogeochemical and hydrological processes from laboratory to river basin scales.

AquaTerra has ten sub-projects with related contents and one extra management subproject. BASIN provides fieldwork logistics and investigates selected sites in the five contrasting European river basins mentioned above. BIOGEOCHEM links to this by exploring soil-filter and transport functions and the fate of pollutants in soils and sediments at field and laboratory scales. The sub-project FLUX uses these results in order to quantify transport and turnover of inorganic and organic solids and solutes at the catchment scale. It also relies on results from HYDRO that addresses impacts of climate change on the water cycle through water balance- and quality parameters. In coordination with the above, the sub-project TREND will identify adverse soil and water quality trends by extrapolating from past and present to future. As a binding agent MONITOR will develop and validate new analytical techniques for persistent pollutants and emerging compounds such as for instance pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Results from the above subprojects will be modelled in COMPUTE on scales that range from laboratory experiments to river basins. The sub-projects EUPOL and INTEGRATOR will synthesise results of AquaTerra in order to bridge the gap between scientists and policy makers. KNOWMAN is a further important sub-project for integration and communication and disseminates results to the scientific community and end-users through workshops, seminars, publishing activities and summer schools. PROMAN is dedicated to management and coordination. Field and sampling work already started, while analytical and laboratory preparations are underway. The project also produced its first peer-reviewed international publications.

The official launch meeting of AquaTerra was held at the Eberhardt-Karls University of Tübingen on the 13th and 14th of September 2004. The meeting had about 150 participants and consisted of an official first day with introductions from the European Commission, the city mayor, the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg, the Vice Chancellor of the University and researchers from Europe and overseas. It had local and overregional press coverage by radio, TV and newspapers. The second day consisted of specific workshops of the above mentioned sub-projects. The meeting was a full success in exchange of plans and expertise on environmental issues from top European researchers, environmental protection agencies and small to medium sized enterprises.

More information about AquaTerra is available under

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IMAGE-TRAIN - FINAL NEWSLETTER & PROJECT RESULTS

6th IMAGE-TRAIN Newsletter (Aug. 04)available from:

In August 2004, the EU-funded project IMAGE-TRAIN (Innovative Management of Groundwater Resources in Europe - Training and RTD Co-ordination Project) ended. IMAGE-TRAIN aimed at improving co-operation and interaction between ongoing research projects in the field of soil and groundwater contamination, and at communicating new technology achievements to young scientists by means of training courses.

The last issue of the IMAGE-TRAIN Newsletter informs about all IMAGE-TRAIN activities and publications:

- Description of all IMAGE-TRAIN events and publications.

- List of IMAGE-TRAIN Publications.

- Implementation of Remediation Technologies - Theory and Practise? The final results of the last IMAGE-TRAIN case study analysing 11 large European soil and groundwater remediation cases are now available.

- Quantitative Risk Assessment: Information on the last IMAGE-TRAIN Advanced Study Course held in Freudenstadt (Germany).

- Forthcoming Events.

Contact: Gundula Prokop (mailto:)

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EUROPEAN PORTAL FOR SOIL AND WATER NOW ONLINE

Information System EUGRIS publicly available since October

The European Groundwater and Contaminated Land Information System EUGRIS went online in October 2004 at . The gateway provides:

- condensed technical information on a wide range of themes;

- overviews on policy and regulation, management systems, research funding programmes, research projects and their outputs; and

- an extensive collection of further web links to primary resources on a European and national level.

At the moment, EUGRIS offers national information for six pilot countries. Its modular structure, however, means that new information can be quickly integrated from other interested countries and new technical topics. Registered users can submit information into all sections of the system, which aspires to act as a “central broker” for soil and water information in Europe.

The site is aimed at the special user requirements of the research community, professionals, problem holders and public authorities. The development of the portal is funded as an Accompanying Measure within the 5th Framework Programme of the European Commission.

To improve the quality of the site and to respond to the future needs of the user market research is being carried out and a questionnaire is accessible through the EUGRIS home page or via

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EU WATER INITIATIVE

The website for the EU Water Initiative Research Component has been updated with an on-line data base including FP funded European and INCO projects within the water sector and also information of 6th FP Call for Proposals of relevance to the EU Water Initiative. For more information please click on:

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WATER SUPPLY AND SANITATION TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

The multi-stakeholder Working Groups of the Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WSSTP) continue their work around the development of a common Vision Document, a Strategic Research Agenda and its Implementation Plan; intermediate results shall be presented in an open stakeholder event in the beginning of 2005. For more information with regard to the objectives and organisational setup of the WSSTP please visit the recently launched website at:

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RESPONSE TO FP6-2004-GLOBAL-3 CALL

The third call for proposals in the area “Global Change and Ecosystems” closed on 26 October 2004. A total of 276 proposals were received. The evaluation of the proposals will take place during November and December.

Proposers should expect to receive the first indication of the result of the evaluation of their proposal around the end of this year or the beginning of the new year.

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REORGANISATION OF DIRECTORATE ENVIRONMENT

The Directorate Environment within DG Research has been reorganised into the following five units:

- I.1: Policy Aspects of Research and Sustainable Development

- I.2: Environmental Technologies and Pollution Prevention

- I.3: Management of Natural Resources and Services

- I.4: Environment and Climate System

- I.5: Administration and finance

The reorganisation of the directorate means that the “Water Cycle and Soil Related Activities” are no longer managed within a single unit, and projects have been distributed among the new units according to how their objectives fit with the new organisational structure. The staff of the old units has been redeployed within the new units, but often with new responsibilities in order to comply with principles of staff rotation within the Commission. As a consequence, some research projects will experience changes in their contact person within the directorate, but all the projects concerned will be notified directly.

The directorate has also recently moved to another building in Brussels, and the new visiting address is Rue du Champ de Mars 21, Brussels. The new location is approximately 5 minutes walk from the main building for DG Research at Square de Meeus 8.

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OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

CORDIS is the main website for general information on FP6 programmes and projects It contains a special area devoted to “Global Change and Ecosystems” at

Apart from these, you may also find the following sites, which carry information more specifically dealing with the FP5 Water Key Action, of interest:

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CONTRIBUTIONS

You are most welcome to provide contributions for the future issues of this newsletter. Please send your suggestions to mailto:. The editor reserves the right to select and edit the items for inclusion in the newsletter.

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PREVIOUS ISSUES

Previous issues of this newsletter may be downloaded from

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LEGAL NOTICE

The content of this newsletter is prepared by officials of DG Research and represents their personal views on the subject matters. These views have not been adopted or in any way approved by the European Commission and should not be relied upon as a statement of the Commission or DG Research.