WP1 CO-ORDINATION
WP2 ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF WATER
         RELATED IMPACTS
WP3 ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF METHODOLOGIES
         OF ADAPTATION MEASURES
WP4 IDENTIFICATION OF RESEARCH NEEDS
WP5 IDENTIFYING AND BRIDGING GAPS IN WATER
         RELATED EUROPEAN POLICIES
WP6 DISSEMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE

WP1

Co-ordination - WP1, will play an especially important role in this Project as highly heterogeneous research fields, scientific and technical issues are concerned. And a good understanding of the scientific, economic and policy implications is needed, with special regard to finding the gap between them.

WP2

WP2 and WP3 will be simultaneously solved, as there is the very evident interaction between the impact on water resources and their users and the adaptive measures, methods and strategies aimed at the prevention and/or mitigation of these impacts. All partners will contribute to both with strong bi- and multilateral contacts, with special regard to their geographic areas and professional fields: Work to be carried out in WP2 concerns the analysis and synthesis of data and information on the likely (known, assumed, expected, modelled, forecasted, predicted, estimated etc.) water related impacts of the changes of the climate with special regard to their risk and to the urgency of getting prepared to combat these changes and their impacts. The work is the scientifically based analysis and synthesis of the results of recent (and ongoing) R&D Projects dealing with water related topics and/or climate change related issues. The leading partner of each task that corresponds to this objective will combine and harmonise the results of all sub-work-packages (topics), while it will also contribute to one or more of them. The aim is the identification of the impacts on the hydrological cycle and on the water resources as quantitatively (numerically) as possible, giving where applicable the probabilities encountered, along with their risk for all users of the water resources, the people (the society and the economy) and the nature (the biota and the ecosystem and their habitat also as the landscape) and all sufferers of water related impacts.

WP3

Work to be carried out in WP3 will identify and integrate into a single framework best adaptation strategies that were developed in Europe and also globally for handling (preventing, eliminating, combating, mitigating) the impacts of global climate changes on water resources and aquatic ecosystems, including all other water related issues of the society and nature. The adjoining objective is to identify missing or inadequate adaptation strategies and measures, thus preparing the inputs to the next phase of work on the identification of research needs with special regard to the supporting of the development of relevant European policies. This work will be carried out for each impact areas that were identified in WP2 as possible impacts with special regard to the outcome of the analysis and synthesis and of the evaluation of the magnitude of impacts and urgency of action. WP3 will provide a ranked list of the most likely expectable water related impacts of the global climate change, with a short, concise and possibly quantitative description of each impact.

WP4

Work to be carried out in WP4 represents one of the main outputs and synthesising effort of the whole proposal. All partners will contribute to this as much as they can, giving new items to the novel research ideas mentioned above in the conceptual part, but this is the main professional duty of the co-ordinating partner. The objective of this work is to identify the research gaps in the topics discussed in WP2 and WP3, which also means that the missing links between research results in the field of climate change and of water management should be identified. The research fields and topics include those needed for the development and application of methodologies for adaptation measures relating to water resources to the impacts of climate change, for the development of scenarios of water demand and also for the implementation on water policies. Some of the "missing links" will only show up during the assessment work allowing the identification of research needs only then. The thorough identification of future research needs will also help the development of Strategic Research Agendas for various research forums and platforms such as the Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform (WSSTP), which was set up under the European Environmental Technology Action Plan (ETAP); the EU Water Initiative (EUWI), which was launched at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development; EC DG Joint Research Centre - Institute for Environment and Sustainability (JRC-IES), as well as the European Environment Agency (EEA), which manages the Water Information System for Europe (WISE) together with DG Environment, JRC and Eurostat. A more complete list of research forums and platforms to be targeted by the ClimateWater project will be identified during the course of the project. . This work proceeds simultaneously and interactively with the next work phase, which identifies gaps of European water policies in their dealing with the required adaptation and mitigation measures.

WP5

Work to be carried out in WP5 represents the other main output of the project directly supporting the implementation of EU policies and the FP7 Work Programme. This work will review all European water related policies, breaking down to tasks and topics according to main policy fields, with strong emphasis on identifying their ability and capacity of adaptation to climate change impacts and how these can be taken into account in the (re)formulation of current and future policies, thereby proposing recommendations and solutions to identified shortcomings. In doing so the Project will review the needs of adaptation and damage mitigation, etc. measures and strategies identified and how these demands can be satisfied by the water related policies. International conventions, regulations and policies (beyond and including Europe) will also be considered. WP4 follows from the structure and interaction of work described above, that the tasks and topics can only be identified after having the previous work phases (WPs 3 and 4) nearly completed. All partners are expected to contribute, but it will be the main duty of those partner institutions whose main field is water (and environmental) research (e.g. like the Co-ordinator, VITUKI).

WP6

Dissemination and Science Communication in WP6 will play an especially important role in this project right from the beginning, as the international scientific and regulatory (policy making) community must be kept informed and offered an option to contribute during the implementation phase of the project.

This work will include the creation of a European Platform on adaptation strategies of climate change impacts and European water policies Members of the present consortium have already established wide and active links with an ample range of stakeholders throughout their previous works and projects. Three main poles of discussions on climate change and water - purely scientific and research, policy-related, technology-related will be represented in the Platform that will act as a 2-directional communicational channel between the Consortium and the professional community and it will be kept operational for a prolonged time after the project. The Platform will also provide a forum where the reviews and recommendations shall be accessible for researchers, government agencies, NGO-s, representatives of the media for comments and evaluation. Awareness raising for the non-scientific community is also considered important as access to project results cannot be the prerogative of scientists and academic staff.

The need for plain phrasings and the "translation" of project findings to a level that can be understood is important, because it can lead to an easier (and more accurate!) take-up by the national and international media and also because demand side management of water stress in light of climate change is impossible without the involvement of public and the corporate/SME sector (e.g. corporate responsibility on water savings in offices and industrial parks).

By addressing a broader community this WP will contribute to the achievement of an important horizontal effort in FP7: bridging the gap between science and all actors of society.