Ινστιτούτο Εδαφοϋδατικών Πόρων

NBS360 is a Mediterranean-wide innovation initiative designed to turn Nature-Based Solutions from scattered pilots into scalable, mainstream practices for water security, climate resilience and ecosystem restoration. The project delivers integrated and hybrid NbS across seven demonstration sites, addressing interconnected challenges such as erosion, salinisation, floods, droughts, inefficient irrigation and wetland degradation. It combines real-time environmental monitoring, harmonised data systems and advanced modelling within a Digital Twin and Decision Support framework to guide evidence-based planning and cost-effective scaling. Through participatory governance, Living Labs and inclusive stakeholder engagement, NBS360 co-designs solutions that strengthen local livelihoods and social cohesion. Long-term impact is secured via innovative financing mechanisms, open knowledge tools and structured scaling pathways that embed NbS into policy, practice and community stewardship across diverse Mediterranean contexts.

The RAINS project aims to help European farmers, especially in southern regions such as Greece and Spain, be more resilient against extreme weather events such as drought and torrential rains. Both Greece and Spain belong to the Mediterranean region, which is the region most affected by drought and water scarcity forecasts in Europe. RAINS will bring together farmers, researchers, businesses, government officials, and community groups (a “quadruple helix” of stakeholders) to work together. They’ll share ideas, test solutions, and discuss how to use these new techniques in everyday farming. The overall goal of the project is for the demo farms to use water and fertilisers more efficiently and sustainably – saving water, improving crop health, enhancing resilience to extreme weather, while also influencing agricultural policies and farming practices across the EU.

The VENUS project aims to transform marginal lands across the Mediterranean Basin into productive and sustainable agroecosystems by promoting the cultivation of neglected and underutilized species (NUS). Its objectives are structured to support both environmental restoration and socio-economic resilience through evidence-based demonstration, knowledge transfer, and stakeholder engagement. First, it will generate solid data on the ecological and economic benefits of NUS cultivation and implement Mediterranean demonstration sites to showcase sustainable practices. The project will empower farmers with the skills and market connections needed to integrate NUS into existing agricultural systems. A thorough assessment of the scalability and adaptability of NUS across diverse Mediterranean landscapes will guide future expansion. Additionally, VENUS prioritizes awareness-raising to catalyze broader adoption of sustainable land management practices. Finally, the project emphasizes gender equality and youth empowerment, ensuring inclusive participation in all activities and promoting long-term regional development.

The GOV4ALL project aims to transform soil management and rural development across Mediterranean regions through participatory innovation and systemic change. It seeks to demonstrate that regional-level transformations in soil governance are possible by empowering rural communities and deploying a bottom-up approach that brings together farmers, scientists, NGOs, policymakers, and the public. To achieve this, GOV4ALL will establish five agro-innovation Living Labs in France, Spain, and Greece that act as rural regeneration hubs where stakeholders co-design, test, and validate regenerative soil practices tailored to local contexts. The project’s objectives include exploring regional needs and multi-actor governance models, creating sustainable business frameworks for the hubs, defining harmonized soil health baselines, co-creating scalable soil management solutions, and disseminating innovations and best practices throughout and beyond the Mediterranean. GOV4ALL aims to foster long-term socio-economic and ecological resilience by integrating sustainable farming with rural prosperity.

NexusLabs aims to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of water, energy, and food use in Mediterranean irrigated agriculture by providing stakeholders with a comprehensive package of innovative solutions. These solutions will be tested and demonstrated in real-world Living Labs and integrated into novel, holistic tools for scenario analysis and impact assessment, fully addressing the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus. In parallel, the project will implement targeted training and market preparation strategies to enable scaling across broader regions and user communities. In the context of NexusLabs, SWRI is responsible of leading the Living Lab established in the Pinios Hydrologic Observatory (Thessaly, Greece).

The project aims to create a new closed value chain by formulating a soil amendment product based on the revalorization of 2 by-products (biochar and digestates) obtained from the bio-waste management and processing (pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion). This innovation will demonstrate the agricultural benefits and financial advantages of using the soil amendment in impoverished soils, simultaneously harnessing the synergies between agriculture and renewable gas production.

In 2020, global biofuel production levels reached 1,677,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with a growth rate per annum of 38.3% (2009-2020). The global biofuels market is expected to reach a market size of 153.8 billion U.S. dollars by 2024. This growth has largely been driven by policies that encourage the use and production of biofuels due to the perception that it could provide energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in relevant sectors. Nevertheless, as the biofuel production rises steadily, biogenic emissions increase annually as well. By the end of 2021, cumulative biogenic emissions had reached 8.8*108 metric tons CO2e. The main routes of producing carbon waste, as biogenic effluent gases within the biofuel production are anaerobic digestion, ethanolic fermentation and thermochemical processes. To this end, CRONUS aims to accelerate on the path to sustainable bioenergy and can play an important and constructive role in achieving the UN SDGs (7,8,9,11,12 and 13) by incorporating in the biofuels production lines carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CUS) techniques promoting the concept of Bioenergy and Carbon capture, utilisation and storage. The latter can stand as a solution to meet the 2021 Glasgow agreement on climate change’s aim of less than 1,5οC and contributes to the phase-out of fossil fuels and the decarbonisation of the EU economy in accordance to European Green Deal goals. Ambition The overall ambition of the CRONUS project is to significantly advance the current state of the art in the area of biofuels production and the utilisation of biogenic effluent gases. CRONUS will introduce effective technologies with high-potential innovations (techno-economic feasible solutions), thus accelerating the green transition and associated transformation of our economy, industry and society with a view to achieving climate neutrality in Europe by 2050.

LIFE CO2toCH4 aims at developing and demonstrating an innovative, integrated, and sustainable industrial process for simultaneous energy storage and CO2 capture and utilization (CCU). The ultimate goal of the project is to construct, test and operate (TRL8) a smart mobile unit for hybrid energy storage able to be installed in remote energy systems that commonly have low capacity (e.g., remote areas or islands that are not interconnected with the central energy grid). The technology relies on the fact that the RES (Renewable Energy Sources) will be used for water electrolysis, and subsequently the produced H2 will be biologically converted into methane (as a non-fossil biofuel) together with CO2 from exhaust gasses.