Though its Open Tender for Innovation (OTI), ARSINOE was seeking for solutions that can help our regions and communities across Europe increase their resilience to extreme heat, water scarcity, drought, water pollution, and/or floods.
The Main River Basin suffers from droughts which lead to conflicts for water management. IrriBigData is a tool developed by ANBI-Emilia Romagna for collecting data from irrigation systems and supports analysis and forecasting algorithms. It is a data provider for tools supporting operational and for water scarcity management decisions. It has a crucial role for strategic water for future use planning. In such a way IrriBigData has a considerable impact on the water usage governance as it supports decisions for policy implementation in the water sector and, therefore, it can be viewed as an effective social and governance innovation. Data collected and stored in IrriBigData allow to build the basis for managing conflicts for water uses and among territories also at the river district level.
IrriBigData can be suitable to face several challenges in the Main River Basin case study as it attends to the primary function of data collection at regional or river district area which constitutes the indispensable base knowledge to engage all these challenges. IrriBigData may contribute to social or behavioural changes and governance as it aims to obtain more efficiency in agricultural water use and support regulation in the irrigation sector. Potential impacts on social behaviour and capacity building enforcement are expected. In addition, it will have a direct impact on water conservation and water use efficiency as it provides knowledge to decision makers and awareness of the water use to farmers and water managers. It supports cross-sectoral approaches to resource management as suggested and promoted by the EU WFD2000/60/CE. IrriBigData provides knowledge concerning current water uses, effective needs and potential efficiency gain rooms in the irrigation system. Therefore, it can significantly improve water management of the whole system.
Next week we will introduce our last winner for this 1st OTI: a tip : tap, stay tuned!