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To develop innovative and integrated information and decision systems in managing ecosystems at the river basin scale, promote sustainable water resource management, and ensure their sustainability in the short- and medium-term.

This is the main objective of the OurMED project (Sustainable water storage and distribution in the Mediterranean), in which IIAMA-UPV researchers Vanessa Almeida de Godoy, Eduardo Cassiraga, Miguel Martín, Carmen Hernández, Javier Rodrigo and Jaime Gómez-Hernández, the latter as a leading researcher of IIAMA-UPV, participate. OurMED lasts 42 months and is integrated by a consortium of 15 partners coordinated by Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

The project - which is part of the PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) Foundation's R&D&I funding program - seeks, through research and technological innovation, to promote sustainable management of water resources in water-scarce areas of the Mediterranean that are severely threatened by the impact of climate change.

"To ensure the supply in the short and medium term, a multi-sectoral, participatory, and adaptive management is urgently needed," says Dr. Gómez-Hernández, professor of Hydraulic Engineering.

Therefore, the OurMED project will promote the integration of multiple sources of information into a single system that monitors the amount of water in a river basin, both surface water (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, etc.) and groundwater.

"This will allow better decisions to be made about the overall water resources of a basin," said Dr. Gómez-Hernández.

Case studies and work of IIAMA UPV

The project will address 9 case studies that will serve as a reference for developing an information and decision-making platform. In this way, it will be possible to know the impact of specific actions on these ecosystems.

Specifically, IIAMA researchers will evaluate the Júcar River basin and the Albufera wetland, which has recently received water from the basin due to the critical situation experienced this autumn due to the lack of rainfall.

Therefore, this research will seek the involvement of the different agents related to these entities, i.e., "the people who can use the results of the models we investigate," says Jaime Gómez-Hernández.

The IIAMA researcher emphasises that the project's final results will change how water resources are managed "by proposing optimal and innovative solutions with a multi-objective and multi-sectorial perspective," concludes the UPV professor.