Creating and Upscaling Sponge Landscapes Working with Natural Water Retention and Sustainable Management (SpongeWorks)

Implementing Nature-based Solutions for Water Retention and Climate Resilience in Europe

The SpongeWorks project aims to demonstrate practical, effective, economically feasible and socially inclusive nature-based “Sponge” solutions that enhance the water retention of interconnected groundwater, soil, and surface water systems at river basin scale.

The project seeks to upscale these solutions to regional and landscape levels.

Overview

SpongeWorks will be implemented and evaluated in three large demonstration sites, in the following river basins:

Vecht River Basin - Netherlands and Germany
Lèze River Basin - France
Pinios River Basin - Greece

The project seeks to upscale these solutions to regional and landscape levels.

The three demonstration sites will be used to transfer knowledge and lessons learned through co-created strategies (action plans and roadmaps) to at least eight associated regions and shared with the wider European Community of Practice (CoP) via the SpongeWorks Academy.

IIASA Project Team

Julian Joseph

Research Scholar (WAT)

Taher Kahil

Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar (WAT)

Samar Asad

Research Assistant (WAT)

IIASA’s Water Security Research Group will contribute its expertise in hydro-economic modeling to explore the role of economic policy instruments in developing business cases for sponge strategies.

It leads Work Package 5: Upscaling throughout the EU and beyond building on four different tasks:

T5.1: Exploring the role of economic policy instruments for creating the business case for sponge strategies.
T5.2: Defining financial planning modules for sponge strategies.
T5.3: Transferring knowledge to associated regions for a wider applicability of sponge strategies.
T5.4: Designing an overarching guidance framework to mainstream the adoption of sponge strategies at the European level.