Assessment of Water Balances and Optimisation based Target setting across EU River Basins
Development of Prevention Activities to Halt Desertification in Europe 2011, DG Environment
The overall aim of the ABOT is to support the European Commission’s effort to identify means and develop prevention activities to halt desertification in Europe, by focusing on complementing EU water resources balances elaborated in the framework of the System of Economic and Environmental Accounts for Water (SEEAW) and supplementing ongoing projects which tackle water scarcity, droughts and desertification. The ABOT project has selected a harmonized approach and implements its activities across 4 Pilot River Basins which are located in different EU regions and face various problems: Tiber RB in Italy, Mulde RB in Germany, Pinios RB in Greece, Vit RB in Bulgaria. The pilot RBs will follow the same methodological framework in developing detailed water resources balance models feeding the SEEAW system and assessing the impact and cost-effectiveness of selected response measures toward an optimal water allocation. The final goal is to cross-compare the results with the purpose of setting targets regarding water efficiency, water-reuse, ecosystem services, land-use and climate change adaptation for a typology of EU catchments under a specific context. With this approach, ABOT aspires to provide valuable input to the 2012 Policy Review and the Blueprint, while develop operation decision support tools to be made available to the local water managers and stakeholders.