An EU H2020 project
June 2016 - May 2019
The FLOWERED project methodology is organised into laboratory and field scale research activities based on the integration of research and innovative activities, included with a deep analysis of the local environment conditions that drive the final technological solutions and the proposal of good practices, through a participative approach (Figure 1).
Figure 1. FLOWERED methodology is planned to answer to the need to achieve an Integrated Water Management System based on the deep knowledge of the natural and human dimension of the study areas: research (blu boxes) and innovation (orange boxes) activities are overlapped to demonstrate the relationship between them.
The project stated with building of the Hydrogeological framework at a regional scale (African Rift Valley). It is based on the study of the geological-hydrogeological and geochemical conditions associated with the presence of fluoride in the water bodies and groundwater, the groundwater-surface water interactions and their relationship with the fluoride content in water supplies in three case study areas: Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Among others, remote sensing data and GIS technologies will be used for a systematic approach on data gathering and analysis for the whole interdisciplinary team.
FLOWERED has a strong interdisciplinary research approach because it implies knowledge of geology, hydrogeology, mineralogy, geochemistry, agronomy, crop and animal sciences, engineering, technological sciences, data management and software design, economics and communication.
During 36 months, FLOWERED will be developed according to seven Work Packages (WPs) as described below depicted in Figure 2.
The project is organized in three main activities (WP1, WP2, WP3) supported by a detailed, innovative and shared Geo-data system for the knowledge management (WP4). Specific actions will be dedicated to the market analysis (WP5). The activities of communication, dissemination and exploitation (WP6) will attend the whole project from the beginning as well as those of coordination and management (WP7) that will be organized to guarantee the high scientific and innovative level of the results.
FLOWERED will develop innovative strategies to address the fluoride contamination phenomenon that may be useful also in similar environmental and socio-economic contexts to those involved in the project. In the domain of defluoridation strategies, FLOWERED ambition is therefore to push the technology readiness level from about 3-4 at the moment to at least 7-8 by the end of the project. In terms of the innovation chain for the cropping and livestock systems, FLOWERED will move from the experimental research (Technology Readiness Level of 3), to development, piloting and demonstration actions (i.e., Technology Readiness Level of 5-6) by the end of the project, and, in the long term, to integrated, sustainable and less fluoride-sensitive agricultural systems that may be implemented even outside the East African Rift Valley areas (Technology Readiness Level of 7-9).
