Horizon Water: Managed Aquifer Recharge for Farms

Extending, improving and customising managed aquifer recharge (MAR) techniques for farms, river basins and catchments across representative EU agricultural and climate conditions — plus a method for picking where MAR actually works, and a monitoring system that tracks its impact on groundwater quality, quantity, associated water ecosystems and dependent terrestrial ecosystems. Proposals also have to weigh MAR’s effect on drinking water and pair it with engineered or Nature-based Solutions that cut runoff and soil erosion and build landscape climate resilience, then cost it out and design real business models — payment schemes, nature, carbon or water credits — that pay farmers or land managers for hosting a system. Those business models have to be proven with at least 2 case studies in different pedoclimatic zones, plus a governance model that fits different EU regions’ own conditions.