Project coordinator Prof. Dr. Irina Engelhardt from the TU Berlin has talked to the Berlin newspaper “Der Tagesspiegel” about the MedWater project. You can read the article here, however, it is only available in German.
Blog
4th MedWater status meeting in Berlin
On July 18-19, 2019, the MedWater partners came together in Berlin to present the status of the individual work packages and to discuss the next steps. In addition to the German partners, several international collaborators attended the two-day workshop: Dr. Yakov Livshitz from the Hydrological Service Israel and Dr. Yossi Guttman from Mekorot in Israel, as well as Professor Pantaleone De Vita and Delia Cusano from the University of Napoli and Dr. Edoardo Bucchignani from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy.
The first day was reserved for attendees to give an update on their work, and for international partners to provide more information on the study area and transfer locations. Also discussed were ideas about project dissemination. On the second day, participants split up to attend workshops on the definition of scenarios and indicators and the transfer of study results to other locations.
To conclude the meeting, the participants agreed on a timeline for project documentation and discussed potential topics for publications. The 5th status meeting will take place in early 2020.
MedWater at EGU 2019
We are pleased that at this year’s European Geophysical Union (EGU) the MedWater project was represented by two poster presentations. Both posters dealt with the numerical simulation of the Western Mountain Aquifer in Israel, taking different approaches:
Field Installations Italy
During a field visit in September 2018 it was recognized that new measurement installations were required in the Capodifume Karst Catchment, close to Salerno.
Installations were completed during a field campaign in March 2019, in conjunction with project partners from the University of Naples Federico II. Two weather stations, five rain gauges and three soil moisture sensors were installed across the karstified recharge area, which spans approximately 85 km2. A multi-parameter sensor, measuring temperature, turbidity, pH value, pressure and electrical conductivity, was installed in the Capodifume Spring, which is the main discharge of the aquifer. Thus the response of the karst catchment discharge to recharge events can be observed. 
Characteristics of surface runoff will also be monitored in a number of valleys in the catchment using combined electrical conductivity, temperature, and depth sensors. Readings from the continuously recording dataloggers described above will be complemented by regular manual discharge measurements at a weir downstream of the Capodifume Spring.
The data collected will be used to classify the karst catchment and gain knowledge of the aquifer behaviour. The transfer of the results from the study side in Israel to other catchments and the Mediterranean area will be validated using these data.
Young Scientists Exchange Program (YSEP): New Scientists in the MedWater Project
We are happy to welcome three new young scientists within the MedWater project. They are all funded by the Young Scientists Exchange Program (YSEP) of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Technology and Space (MOST), Israel. This exchange program was designed to encourage young scientists to engage themselves in the Water Technology Research Program in the framework of the German-Israeli Cooperation. It enables M.Sc. students, post graduates, doctoral degree students, and post doctorates candidates to spend a training period in Israel or Germany up to 6 months.
Field Investigation
In September 2018 a group of project partners from TU Berlin and the University of Goettingen visited the Alento River Catchment field site in Italy, close to Salerno. The Alento Catchment is one of the areas that will be used as transfer region – the findings of the Western Mountain Aquifer will be transferred to these regions, and vice versa.
Together with the project partners from the University of Naples Federico II, the catchment was reinspected and its applicability for the current study was reviewed. It was noted that in the existing observation zones in the catchment, recharge is captured exclusively through flysch soils.
In order to augment the characterization of the area, it was new instrumentation will be installed in a karstified carbonate ridge nearby. A further field investigation has been planned for October, during which the first instrumentation in the new observation area will be installed. By instrumenting the carbonate aquifer a comprehensive set of field data will be collected, allowing interpretation of the response of different hydrogeological systems within the Alento Area to meteorological events.
The Mediterranean Region – A Hotspot of Climate Change
The projected climatic changes will have a significant impact on the availability of food and water, energy consumption, human health, tourism, economics and ecosystem services in the Mediterranean region.
Urbanization and Population Growth
The total population of the Mediterranean region is expected to increase from 309 million in 2000 to over 651 million in 2030. If future global rainfall changes are compared to rising water demand as a consequence of population growth, the impact on water resources will be far greater than that of
Carbonate Aquifer
Due to the wide geographical distribution, generally large catchment areas, their discharge towards individual springs and thus their potential for development, carbonate aquifers are very well suited for water supply. The water supply of approximately 25% of the world’s population is extracted from