On September, 1st the project “ICARUS – IWRM for Climate Change Adaptation in Rural Social Ecosystems in Southern Europe“ has been launched. This new CMCC project aims at increasing efficient water use in agriculture: it focuses on the impact of climate change and the consequent adaptation strategies over the next 20 years.

Water resources management presents significant challenges for the development of populations in southern Europe. Considered frequently as a common good, water is essential to life and to numerous human activities, and suffers their negative impacts. In the Mediterranean region, irrigated agriculture, the intense urbanisation, and tourism are increasing their demands for water, requiring therefore important efforts to find new strategies to better manage this scarce resource.

Funded within the 2nd IWRM-NET Funding Initiative, ICARUS is developed by a consortium coordinated by CMCC. The partners are the Portuguese University EIA-UATLANTICA – Ensino, Investigação e Administração S.A. and the Spanish Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
The project develops form three case studies geographically related to the partners: theVenice Lagoon Watershed (Italy), South Portugal, and the Cuenca del Júcar (Valencia, Spain).

The project will analyse and understand the biophysical, socio-economic and institutional dimensions of sustainable water management and will identify innovative adaptation strategies, practices and tools for saving water in irrigated production systems. The main project results will be disseminated also in other Mediterranean countries.

For more information on the ICARUS project, please visit the web page of the project.