43
THEMEDITERRANEAN
The News N° 25
Information: Fax: +33 4 93 65 44 02 - E-mail:
NewSpanishPresidency
for EMWIS
The Chairmanship of the Steering Committee
of
the Euro-MediterraneanWater Infor-
mation System (EMWIS)
was transferred
from Italy to Spain during the committee
meeting last September inValencia:
thepre-
sident of the Jucar Basin Authority,
Ms. Maria Ángeles Ureña, succeeded to
Mr.WalterMazzitti.
The Committee approved the development
priorities for the coming years. They include:
n
Continuing the development of
National
Water Information Systems
in the
Mediterranean countries;
n
Boosting
joint working groups,
with
experts from the EU (in particular those in
the CIS: Common Implementation Stra-
tegy of the Water Framework Directive),
on issues of common interest, such as the
reuse of treated wastewater, solutions to
fight against water scarcity and degrada-
tion of the quality of water resources...
n
Developing synergies with regional and
national political processes such as
the
Water Strategy for the Western
Mediterranean (5+5):
a preparatory
meeting was held as a side event of the
SteeringCommittee;
n
Preparing
newprojects
leading toachie-
vements directly usable in the countries;
TheWater Directors of the 13 countries
present reiterated their commitment to
continue their joint activities within
EMWIS platform, highlighting its uni-
queness in institutional exchanges bet-
ween all theMediterranean countries.
4
TheMediterranean
Water Knowledge Platform
(UfM)
Following the unanimous approval of
the project by 43 member countries of
the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)
in April 2014, the first meeting of the
project SteeringCommitteewas held in
Valencia (Spain).
The four pilot countries of the SouthernMedi-
terranean (Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and
Tunisia) presented the work progress made
for the implementation of
National Water
Information Systems
shared by these
countries' institutions and in the drafting of
white papers that can guide policies for inte-
gratedwater resourcesmanagement.
In addition to the project sponsors,
the
International Office forWater, theMedi-
terraneanWater Institute
and the techni-
cal coordinators
(EMWIS andMENBO),
the
Water Directorates of ten Mediterranean
countries participated in this Steering Com-
mittee as well as the European Environment
Agency, the Mediterranean Action Plan, the
Water Center of the Arab League and the
MediterraneanCenter for Integration.
Theproject isnowenteringanactivephaseof
looking for funding of its regional activities.
Indeed, the regional component of the pro-
ject is open to all Northern, Southern and
EasternMediterranean countries and aims to
provide guides, tools, training, exchange of
experiences and finally the demonstration of
data flow for international reporting.
4
Innovation tomeet
theMediterraneanwater
challenges
The Mediterranean region is facing many
challenges in sustainable water resources
management. Many solutions have been
developedby research centers, but the transi-
tion to a large-scale deployment is delayed
due to the lack of field validation in real size.
The European Union, with its “Innova-
tion Program for Water”, is supporting
real-size water demonstration projects
involving laboratories, companies and
endusers.
EMWIS takes part in four of these pro-
jects, with a high potential for the
region, to:
l
Advise farmers on their irrigation practice
on a daily basis, but also on the planning
of coming crops thatwill soonbepossible
thanks to an online expert system imple-
mented by
“OPIRIS”
(
)
;
l
Solve the three problems of feeding
populations, energy efficiency and water
efficiency, the
”WEAM4i”
project imple-
ments solutions for intelligent irrigation
management
(weam4i.eu)
;
l
Make large Mediterranean tourist resorts
water-self sufficient,which remains a very
long-term goal, but the
“demEAUmed”
project is testing solutions forwater treat-
ment and control for that purpose
(
;
l
In theMediterranean, dams are important
for irrigation, drinking water supply and
flood control, but their management is
complex. The
”SAID”
project proposes a
set of tools for monitoring, control and
early warning related to water quality,
hydrometeorology for floods, manage-
ment andmaintenance of structures
(
)
.
4
EMWIS
Better management of knowledge on water in theMediterranean area
SEMIDE
EMWIS
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
Passing the Presidency
from Italy to Spain
Steering Committee of theMediterranean
Water Platform
