Study Sites

AQUEDUCT – Experimental Setup and Study Areas

The global approach is to design and test, in collaboration with stakeholders, the interests and shortcomings of innovative water accounting tools in real sites dominated by agricultural, natural and forested cover, while considering current situations under water crisis (restrictions in particular) and future plausible situations.

Seven Mediterranean Sites

The AQUEDUCT project includes 7 sites, where accounting tools and methods will be designed, tested and implemented:

  • Segre basin – Lleida irrigation district (Spain)

  • Segre basin – Tarragona Valls (Spain)

  • Flumendosa catchment – Orroli site (Italy)

  • Tensift basin (Morocco)

  • Cap‑Bon – Lebna site (Tunisia)

  • Cap‑Bon – Kamech site (Tunisia)

  • Cap‑Bon – Beni‑Khalled site (Tunisia)

Two Types of Sites

The AQUEDUCT project includes 7 sites, where accounting tools and methods will be designed, tested and implemented:

  • Sites with implementation of integrated water accounting taking into consideration upstream/downstream linkages – meso‑scale catchments (100–1000 km²).

  • Sites representative of one or two sectors: rainfed agriculture, natural ecosystem, forest ecosystem, or irrigated agriculture.

Exploring Regional Water Challenges

Regional Context

  • The Mediterranean region has been facing water scarcity due to the combined effects of increasing water demands across ecological and human activity sectors (agriculture, industry, domestic use, aquatic environment) and a global decrease in water resources.

  • Mediterranean catchments are typified by diverse spatial scales inherent to agricultural decisions (field, farm, irrigated perimeter, landscape, basin) and to water management, and by several temporal scales (growing season, multi‑year crop rotation, conjunctural crisis, agricultural transition, climate change; flooding, hydro‑climatic years, droughts).

  • These spatiotemporal scales are intertwined by the sharing and use of strategic water resources and by redistribution through hydrological fluxes (river flows to dams, aquifer recharge).

Pastoral landscape

Irrigated field

Valleys & slopes

Reservoir & monitoring

Hills & fields