About

Agricultural land in Europe (EU27) accounts for 40% of total land area of which 61% is under arable crops. Agriculture accounts for 44% of the water use in Europe and 80% in countries like Tunisia. Adoption of water and soil conserving practices in Europe and North Africa will contribute to retention of water and nutrient at source and enhance the use efficiency producing more with the same input. Adoption of water and nutrient efficient production systems will also reduce the outflow of contaminated water.

WaterFARMING goal is to enhance the water and nutrient retention capacity and improve use efficiency in diverse arable production systems across Europe and North Africa, to reduce soil and water pollution for sustainable management of water resources.

The objectives of WaterFARMING are to:

• Quantify the potential to enhance retention and use efficiencies of water and nutrients at field, farm and catchment scale through water and soil conserving practices in a selected network of production systems.
• Identify and use environmental, economic and social indicators to evaluate the production systems. 
• Design innovative practices and sustainable water and nutrient use production systems.
• Develop a web-based decision support tool for informed-decision making by farmers, advisory services and policy-makers.

Results

The expected outputs are:

• A list of water and nutrient use efficiency gaps in relevant production systems.
• A set of widely applicable environmental, economic and social indicators.
• Innovative practices to improve the network of production systems.
• A decision support tool for informed decision making by stakeholders.