Current Projects

ARSINOE is financed by the European Commission with a total budget of 15 million euros and is coordinated by the University of Thessaly, Greece. It brings together 41 partners from 15 countries and intends to be a game-changer for shaping pathways to resilience by delivering regional innovation packages that build an ecosystem to develop and implement innovative climate change adaptation measures and solutions across Europe.

Acknowledging that climate change is complex and strongly connected to other global challenges, such as food security, water scarcity, biodiversity depletion and environmental degradation, it is insufficient to use traditional approaches to innovation that focus on one aspect of the problem.

Systems Innovation Approach (SIA) addresses the developing complexity, interdependencies and interconnectedness of contemporary societies and economies, covering the functions of the cross-sectoral system as a whole and the respective variety of stakeholders. The Climate Innovation Window (CIW) refers to the European Union’s innovations marketplace for climate adaptation technologies.

Towards this direction, in the next four years the ARSINOE project will develop a methodological framework for the combination of SIA with the CIW to create an ecosystem under a three-tier approach: (a) integration of multi-faceted technological, digital, business, governance and environmental aspects with social innovation for the development of adaptation pathways to climate change, so as to meet EU Green Deal targets for specific regions; (b) linkage with CIW to form innovation packages by matching innovators with end-users and regions; (c) fostering the ecosystem sustainability and growth with cross-fertilization and replication across scales, at European level and beyond, using appropriate business models and exploitation-outreach actions.

Nine widely diverse regions across Europe will demonstrate the ARSINOE three-tier approach as a proof-of-concept with regards to its applicability, replicability, potential and efficacy. These are: (i) Athens metropolitan area (EL), (ii) Mediterranean ports including Port of Piraeus (EL), Limassol (CY) and Valencia (ES), (iii) Main river in Germany (DE), (iv) transboundary Ochrid/Prespa lakes (MK, AL, EL), (v) Canary Islands (ES), (vi) transboundary Black Sea including Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (RO, BG and TR), (vii) Southern Denmark (DK), (viii) Torbay and Devon county (UK) and (ix) the Mediterranean island Sardinia (IT).

Led by: University of Thessaly

Partners: The ARSINOE Consortium consists of 41 project partners, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme

For further information, please visit the dedicated ARSINOE project webpage.

Blue Heart is a 6-year project, funded by Defra's Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP), which aims to champion innovative approaches to flood resilience and climate adaptation in Eastbourne and southern Wealden.

The project will adopt smart technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) to establish an integrated water management system for these communities, which will monitor water levels in real-time and incorporate forecasted rainfall to issue flood warnings and alerts, and calculate the optimum response - to either store or release water.

These solutions will utilise existing infrastructure more effectively and provide economic, environmental, and social opportunities for local people whilst achieving lower whole life carbon than a traditional capital flood risk management scheme.

Led by: East Sussex County Council

Partners: University of Exeter, Environment Agency, Eastbourne Borough Council, Wealden District Council, Pevensey and Cuckmere Water Level Management Board, Southern Water and Agile Rabbit. 

Funder: Defra Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP)

For further information, please contact Principle Investigator Dr Peter Melville-Shreeve or visit the dedicated Blue Heart webpage.

The EU-funded ENFORCE project aims to promote sustainable practices and ensure environmental regulatory compliance within and between organisations. The project will use living lab and citizen science methodologies to develop innovative tools for environmental compliance. This involves bridging the gap between data reporting, monitoring and policy enforcement needs, incorporating innovative data collection, analysis and stakeholder engagement. The project will establish a pan-European collaboration hub introducing the concept of data readiness level (DRL) to assess data for legal purposes. Moreover, it will leverage geospatial intelligence and AI to advance environmental governance practices in line with the Green Deal Data Space initiative. ENFORCE will test and evaluate these tools at 8 pilot sites across 7 countries while also promoting a capacity-building programme and policy recommendation activities.

The Centre for Water Systems team at the University of Exeter, coordinated by Prof Albert Chen, will lead the development of spatial intelligence and reproducible AI to create a series of machine learning algorithms to analyse earth observation datasets for identifying patterns about potential environmental compliance incidents. The ML approaches will be complemented by analytical methodologies such as hydrogeological analysis, contaminant fingerprinting, and chemical fate and transport modelling. CWS will also collaborate with the Westcountry Rivers Trust to test the environmental forensic technologies in the East Devon Catchment for detecting environmental pollution to preventing environmental crime.

Led by: G.A.C. Group (France)

Partners: 25 partners from 10 European countries, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Union's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

The dedicated ENFORCE project webpage is currently under development - check back soon for updates. 

The ICARIA project aims to increase knowledge of the impacts of natural disasters on strategic infrastructures in different sectors such as water, energy and transport, and was launched in January 2023. This initiative also seeks to understand how these events could affect the life-cycle costs of these infrastructures in the coming decades and to ensure that investments are made in adaptation measures to cope with these changes.

Led by: Cetaqua and Aquatec

Partners: 15 project partners, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Commission's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

For further information, please visit the dedicated ICARIA webpage. 

IDEATION seeks to revolutionize the management and understanding of inland water systems, including rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, snow, and ice. By leveraging advanced technologies and cross-border cooperation, the project will provide a comprehensive roadmap, including the IDEATION reference architecture, defining standards and interfaces to ensure interoperability with the DTO. A significant aspect of the project is stakeholder engagement through Water-oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) and Multi-Stakeholder Forums (MSF). These activities will facilitate collaboration and input from a diverse range of stakeholders, ensuring the project meets the needs and priorities of various European communities.

In addition to the comprehensive roadmap and the reference architecture, IDEATION's results will include OpenKIWAS, an open knowledge inventory for inland water systems and a set of recommendations for the future development of the digital twin. Lessons learnt during the project will be openly available. This project exemplifies the power of European collaboration in addressing critical environmental challenges and advancing technological innovation.

The Centre for Water Systems team at the University of Exeter, including Prof Albert Chen and Dr Kate Baker, will participate in IDEATION to analyse policy, regulatory framework and project outputs related to inland water management in order to suggest recommendations for technical governance. 

Led by: CETAQUA (Spain)

Partners: 11 European partners, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Union's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

For further information, please visit the dedicated IDEATION project webpage. 

Adaptation to climate change is a key issue for the survival of ecosystems. The NATALIE project, funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe programme, addresses existing and threatening climate risks and proposes the application of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) to help resolve them.

The 5-year project (starting on 1 September 2023 and ending in August 2028) brings together 42 partners from Europe, 8 demonstration sites and 5 replication sites to observe the effects of these solutions.

Led by: International Office for Water (OiEau, France)

Partners: 42 project partners across Europe, including the University of Exeter.

Funders: European Union's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

For further information, please visit the dedicated NATALIE webpage. 

ResilienTogether is a Defra initiative in the Pix Brook catchment. Its aim is to better monitor, respond and adapt to changing flood risks over the next six years.

The project will integrate a network of smart controls to monitor, control and report on catchment responses to rainfall, in real time, to manage flood frequency and impact, water and environmental quality, community resilience and wider engagement. It will also help develop an awareness and agreement of how understanding the catchment can benefit at risk communities.

The ResilienTogether project is made up of different organisations, including Hertfordshire County Council, The University of Exeter, Bedford Group of Draining Boards, Environment Agency, Anglian Water, Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity, Friends of Norton Common, Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, Affinity Water and North Herts Council.

Led by: Central Bedfordshire Council

Partners: 11 project partners, including the University of Exeter

Funder: Defra Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP)

For further information, please contact Principle Investigator Dr Peter Melville-Shreeve or visit the dedicated ResilienTogether webpage.

The Water-Futures project aims to develop a theoretical basis for designing smart water systems, which can provide a framework for the allocation and development decisions on drinking water infrastructure systems.

The project objectives are as follows:

1. Transitioning of Urban Water Systems: To develop theory and application of robust and flexible decision support strategies to cope with deep uncertainty associated with urban water systems that evolve over time.
2. Water Monitoring & Evolvable Control: To develop new real-time distributed monitoring and evolving control methodologies for water systems in order to support the ability to learn from experience acquired from other parts of the system, and to interact with uncertain human decisions, considering both short-term and long-term planning goals.
3. Learning for Decision Making: To develop Explainable Machine Learning models in non-stationary environments for complex structured and networked data to seamlessly support human decision making for smart water systems by data-driven technologies.
4. Rationality & Eudaimonia: To develop a methodology that integrates economic, social, ethical and environmental considerations, with direct relevance to UN Agenda 2030 into an interdisciplinary decision-support framework that will allow agent-based societal welfare maximization in the short, medium and long-run, under deep uncertainty.
5. Integration & Validation: To design and implement an open-source toolbox that integrates the scientific outputs produced, and the demonstration of the different methodologies developed by the research team, in three urban water systems.

Led by: University of Cyprus

Partners: University of Cyprus, Bielefeld University, Athens University of Economics and Business, KWR Water Research Institute and the University of Exeter

Funder: European Research Council

For further information, please visit the dedicated Water-Futures webpage. 

WATERLINE aims to create a European Digital Water Higher Education Institution (HEI) Alliance, based on the quadruple helix model of innovation, leading to the development of the Alliance’s research, educational and entrepreneurship capacities. This shall leverage the individual, institutional and regional resources required for a transformative structural and sustainable learning and innovation environment.

To achieve this, WATERLINE has five specific objectives:

1. Support consolidation of the Alliance by co-creating a common governance framework, and a Research & Innovation (R&I) capacity building plan
   
2. Co-create a portfolio of water components for Master level and transform emulative laboratories in partner Widening HEIs into assisted and virtual reality. These structural changes will lead to transformed and more competitive R&I HEIs
3. Strengthen WATERLINE researchers’ R&I capacity excellence by implementing activities, such as summer schools to enhance education and R&I skills, and proposal writing workshop
4. Build a European network of academics/researchers who, together with quadruple helix actors, will allow knowledge flow in water domains and extended reality technologies. This allows greater involvement of regional actors in the R&I process and enhances one of the major societal challenges: water-related education. Moreover, it will strengthen academic and business links through academia-to-business meetings and a hackathon to mainstream entrepreneurship mindsets.
5. WATERLINE will sustain the alliance by:

• Establishing ambassador networks

• Identifying the R&I funding landscape, thus increasing participation in HE and the mobilisation of resources in the water sphere, and;
• Creating synergies with EU initiatives, institutions, other projects and networks.

Led by: Malta College of Arts Science and Technology (MCAST)

Partners: The WATERLINE Consortium consists of 15 project partners from 11 European countries, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Union's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

For further information, please visit the dedicated WATERLINE webpage. 

The WATERVERSE mission is to develop a Water Data Management Ecosystem (WDME) for making data management practices and resources in the water sector accessible, affordable, secure, fair, and easy to use, improving usability of data and the interoperability of data-intensive processes, thus lowering the entry barrier to data spaces, enhancing the resilience of water utilities and boosting the perceived value of data and therefore the market opportunities behind it. 

Led by: Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas (CERTH)

Partners: The WATERVERSE Consortium consists of 17 project partners, including the University of Exeter

Funder: European Union's Horizon Europe programme and UKRI's Horizon Europe guarantee funding

For further information, please visit the dedicated WATERVERSE webpage.