The AQUIFER project comes to an end by providing groundwater users with several tools and resources for their efficient management

The European AQUIFER project ended last April. This project has been financed by the European program INTERREG SUDOE, led by the Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (CSIC-IGME) and participated by the CWP, the CUADLL and a total of 6 partners from Spain, Portugal and France. The consortium represented by the various actors who are involved in the sustainable exploitation of groundwater (user and irrigator communities, universities, research centers, clusters), aimed to consider the challenge of sustainable management of this source of water in its entirety, considering the aspects of quality and quantity and the various uses.

During the project, a range of tools related to aquifer recharge, modelling, planning and data collection has been developed, as well as the promotion of the exchange of knowledge between users and relevant actors.

The main results have been the construction of recharge ponds in the Llobregat aquifer, in Molins de Rei, the publication of a guide to good practices and international success stories in the efficient and sustainable management of this resource, the development of a platform of success cases and decision support, the implementation of a groundwater monitoring network, the development of hydrogeological and numerical models and finally a tool for predicting groundwater levels .

All these results represent an advance in the potential for sustainable management of underground water resources in the medium and long term, being also a guarantee of availability in a context of structural scarcity derived from the effects of climate change.