On November 28th and 29th, 2019, ICU as coordinator of the PROSIM Project – Promoting Sustainable Irrigation Management and non-conventional water use in the Mediterranean – financed under the program ENI CBC Med (European Neighbourhood Instrument – Cross Border Cooperation – Mediterranean, www.enicbcmed.eu) has hosted the kick-off meeting of the project. The partners are: the Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon , the Ministry of Agriculture of Tunisia, the Jordan National Agriculture Research Center, the Spanish National Research Council and the Regional Department of Agriculture, the Regional Rural Development and Mediterranean Fisheries of the Sicilian Region. To the event participated also the associate partners from Morocco and Egypt and the Managing Authority of the program, the Sardinia Region.
The project faces relevant water management issues in the Mediterranean area. In particular, in Mediterranean countries, water use for irrigation accounts for more than 70% of water consumption and an important hydric stress is registered due to increasing population and climate change. Water losses due to non-efficient irrigation systems, limited reliance on non-conventional water (NCW), scarce capacities of institutions to enforce effective water management plans and lack of awareness of modern solutions at farm level, are the most common issues to deal with. PROSIM will face these challenges focusing on both water demand and supply for irrigation. The project will bring innovative solutions combining water use efficiency and NCW and build local capacities to adopt/upscale them. Cross-border capacity building and roadmaps and plans for improved water management based on project results will be carried out while enhancing public-private cooperation will be fostered together with investments for the adoption/upscale of the proposed solutions.
The total budget of the project is 3.333.331,62 Euro and it is financed, for an amount of 2.999.998,46 Euro (90%), by the European Union.
