Water management solutions for reducing microbial environmental impact in coastal areas (WATERCARE) is an international project implemented within the cross-border program INTERREG Croatia - Italy (2014-2020). The project aims to reduce the impact of microbiological pollution in marine bathing waters caused by high rainfall events and to develop an integrated water quality monitoring system (WQIS) in selected pilot areas.
There are ten partners involved in the project, five from both - Italy and Croatia. The project’s lead partner is the National Research Council - Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR), from Ancona. Croatian partners are University Department of Marine Studies - University of Split, Split-Dalmatia County, Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Croatian Waters and Istrian County Materials Research Center - METRIS. The total value of the project is EUR 2,833,019.40, 85% of which is provided by EU funds, while a total of EUR 1,129,464.40 goes to Croatian partners.
The project-designed monitoring system of water is being implemented in five pilot areas, 2 in Italy and 3 in Croatia. The pilot areas are the rivers Raša, Cetina and Neretva in Croatia, the river Pescara and the stream Arzilla in Fano in Italy. The WATERCARE project officially started on January 1st 2019 and its estimated duration is 30 months.
The main aim is to generate an alert system that would provide immediate warning in case of microbiological water pollution in targeted areas. The project’s overall objective is to provide an alternative model of coastal water management that will allow the cross-border implementation of an integrated plan with a final goal of preventing, minimizing and eliminating microbiological pollution in coastal waters. The WQIS system will be able to predict events several hours in advance, thus enabling identification of potential environmental risks from microbiological contamination of coastal areas caused by unusually high amounts of precipitation.
The WATERCARE project aims to create a proactive approach for managing coastal water quality, the one that will be replicable in other areas with similar environmental problems. The results from this project can certainly serve authorities in charge as a basis for decision-making. Furthermore, the project will present a new tool for bathing water management at local and regional levels, as well as for finding solutions related to bathing water quality, microbiological water pollution and environmental protection.