Understanding groundwater Pollution to protect and enhance WATERquality

Among the available freshwater resources, groundwater (GW) plays a key role in providing water supplies and livelihoods to respond the pronounced water scarcity.

GW pollution by chemicals (organic and inorganic) and biological agents (viruses and bacteria) originating from human activities is a widespread worldwide problem.

The scientific and technological goals of the UNDERWATER project are (1) to provide scientific knowledge on identification, occurrence and fate of pollutants in the GW with cost-efficient sampling methods based on passive samplers for chemicals and pathogens; (2) to develop sources apportionment methods to identify and quantify the pollution sources, including Compound Specific Isotopic Analysis (CSIA) and (3) to validate and assess the performance of bio-based engineered natural treatment systems designed as mitigation solutions.

The monitoring and mitigation solutions will be validated in 3 case studies (DK, GR and ES), representing different EU climate conditions and a combination of rural, industrial and urban pollution sources.

The existing hydrogeological models will be updated with innovative water quality modelling tools, allowing the simulation of decision-making scenarios under multiple stressors and climate change projections.

The scenarios will also include the expected impacts of scaling-up the mitigation solutions and the adoption of other non-technological preventive measures devoted to minimise the release of chemicals at source (chemicals regulation, taxation, consumption campaigns, public procurement, etc).

The exploitation of specific UNDERWATER results will lead to expected mid-term outcomes including among others: updating the EU chemical priority lists, scaling-up the pilot bio-based solutions to demonstration scale, the adoption of some preventive measures in the case studies and the close-to-market development of the passive sampling devices.