Close

ENGAGE

Title: Europe Nutrient Management – Guided Approaches for Greater Export Reduction 

Funding source: Water4All Partnership, cofunded by the European Union within the frame of the Horizon Europe programme

Total funding: EUR 1 042 648 

Funding for BSC: EUR 299 942 

Implementation period: 14.02.2025.–13.02.2028. 

Coordinator: University of Évora (Portugal) 

Aim: Project’s overall objective is to contribute to better nutrient governance and management in basins across multiple scales (from regional to international), leading to an improvement in the quality of fresh waters and boosting resilience to climate change impacts across EU regions. 

 

Climate change is projected to profoundly impact catchment nutrient dynamics worldwide. Many European aquatic ecosystems are already threatened by nutrient pollution and eutrophication, among other environmental challenges. In Europe, the climate and anthropogenic drivers for excess nutrient pollution vary regionally due to climate and anthropogenic differences, highlighting the need for better cross-boundary management of nutrient dynamics and maximising related Provisioning (water supply and food/drink), Regulating (water purification), Supporting (nutrient cycling), and Cultural (recreation) ecosystem services.  

ENGAGE aims to operationalise a novel vision for the future of multi-scale nutrient export reduction and associated ecosystem services in national and transboundary/international river basins in Europe by bringing together robust stakeholder engagement strategies with coupled state-of-the-art computational hydrologic techniques and online interactive use-tailored decision support tool approaches that integrate remote sensing, socio-economic, governance, and society-change decision elements. This objective will be achieved through a two-phase approach. 

PHASE I “Development and demonstration across multiple spatial scales” consists of the core development and demonstration activities. This involves the creation of regional stakeholder boards (SB), one per case study basin (3 in total), and one SB-network that includes at least 2 representatives of each regional SB. The SBs will focus on the co-design of (1) basin-specific nutrient reduction strategies (primarily focused on agriculture, but urban sources may be included depending on the region), as well as the (2) DST elements needed for informed and collaborative co-decisions, which will include hydrological, biogeochemical, socio-economic and governance components. This information will be discussed within the SB-network that will help short-list/select the (1) nutrient reduction strategies and (2) modelling needs with greater transferability and scalability to other EU regions. The biophysical and remote sensing system components needed to address the modelling needs identified, which will feed the DST, will be developed under WP3. Similarly, the socio-economic assessment indicators and algorithms to include in the integrated system will be developed in WP4. The integrated system that will bring together all these different model components will be developed and applied to the 3 case study basins of the project. Analysis of relevant national and EU policies, and collaborative assessment of challenges and constraints of the current governance systems at regional, national and transnational levels will be run to identify pathways for sustainable river basin governance and management. Findings from these activities will be instrumental in crafting policy recommendations and addressing potential policy conflicts. Communication, dissemination and exploitation activities will help increase the impact during and beyond the project duration.  

PHASE 2 “Recommendations for replication to other regions and scale up to EU level” will provide recommendations for the application of the DST to other EU regions. Focus will also be given to the scaling up and scaling out of the modelling system proposed, as well as the N/P control strategies identified. Policy recommendations will be provided based on the findings of the project. 

 

Local contact person: Elīna Dace, elina.dace [at] bscresearch.lv