The Stakeholders Online Meeting organized by STARS4Water project, scheduled for Thursday 13 March 2025, has been successfully implemented with over 50 participants, 30 of which were stakeholders.
The stakeholders discussed the STARS4Water initiative, which aims to enhance collaboration between researchers and stakeholders in water resource management. Harm Duel, the coordinator of the STARS4Water project, introduced the agenda, highlighting the project’s focus on seven river basins as living labs to develop tools for understanding climate change impacts. The meeting included presentations on data services, modeling frameworks, and the concept of safe operating space, with an emphasis on participant engagement and feedback regarding the project’s achievements and future directions.
The following topics have been presented and discussed:
1st topic: Data services and dashboards
STARS4Water’s data services were presented, including the STARS4Water Metadata Portal emphasizing the launch of a metadata portal that enhances the discoverability of over 400 datasets and the development of customised dashboards to make data more practical for policymaking and water management. As an example, the dashboard for water availability and energy production in the Drammen basin in Norway was presented, emphasizing the impact of snowmelt and climate change on water stress. Machine learning models predicting groundwater contamination were also presented with the example of Duerio river in Spain.
2nd topic: Exploring future water resources
The STARS4Water stakeholder-driven methodology for developing socio-economic narratives and scenarios for future water resource management was presented. The complexities of predicting future water resource scenarios due to socio-economic factors were outlined, along with the need for practical approaches to develop narratives and models for different river basins, and the importance of comparing global and regional data quality in scenario development. Specific examples were given for the Rhine basin, the Danube basin and the Messara basin in Greece, where scenarios used jointly with models can underpin the assessment of future conditions.
3rd topic: Safe Operating Space
The Safe Operating Space (SOS) concept has been discussed, emphasizing its relevance to water management at the river basin scale. The presentation featured case studies from the Seine River Basin and East Anglia, where stakeholders are engaged in defining scenarios and indicators to assess the SOS. The focus is on understanding risks and vulnerabilities to guide sustainable practices. The crucial question reads “Do we stay within the SOS or are we in a zone of risk, affecting the system substantially”? STARS4Water recommends processes for setting the boundaries of SOS, based on indicator formulation in cooperation with stakeholders
