Projects as PI or co-PI#
This section is intended to list the project I contributed to as a PI or co-PI or as a collaborator.
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GRWater (🗓️ 2025-2027)#
GRWater: Multiscale earth critical zone monitoring for post-fire forest ecosystem management
PI: Benjamin Mary/ Hector Nieto
Goal: To tackle the growing interest in understanding the fate of water in forest and post-fire management in the Spanish region.
Consortium: Instituto de Ciencias Agrarias (ICA-CSIC), Estacion Experimental de Zonas Aridas-CSIC (EEZA-CSIC), Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM)
Website: link
Fig. 6 Conceptual figure: (left) target fluxes of water to monitor (WP1) and estimate (WP2) at multiple scales. (right) Possible geophysical implementation with EM surveys covering a spatial area of 50x50m for each treatments. Position (uphill, downhill) and length of the sections should be adapted according to the resolution needed and the expected variability intra and inter-treatments. Note that the sharpening of EO data (D1.5) would allow to get a footprint close to each treatment size. © B. Mary#
Abstract#
The GRwater project (GRwater path starts here: multi-scale monitoring the Earth Critical Zone a key, missing parameter for assessing the forest post-fire management in the face of global warming) tackles the growing interest in understanding the fate of water in forest and post-fire management in the Spanish region.
GRwater project aims to enhance forest management to restore the water cycle while mitigating socio-environmental and environmental risks associated. It aligns with trends in sustainable ecosystems and water resource preservation. The project has a particular focus on field sites with high ecological values located in Castilla-La Mancha (CLM) region affected by fires in the recent years. It investigates different forest restoration methods, including varying tree densities, as well as mulching and physical barriers. To date, there is limited empirical support for the efficacy of these management strategies in reinstating the water cycle to promote vegetation health and erosion prevention, despite substantial financial investment. GRwater uniquely integrates hydrogeophysics with Remote Sensing (RS) to assess the Earth’s Critical Zone (ECZ) comprehensively.
The project will prioritize developing an efficient survey technique, including automatic geophysics, to improve data collection for monitoring subsurface water dynamics. Additionally, GRwater aims to enhance our modeling capabilities using energy and water balance models’, to provide better predictions on plant water availability and groundwater recharge and flow. Machine learning and data assimilation techniques are explored to incorporate the hydrogeophysical data.
GRwater collaborates with partners to manage fire-affected field sites, facilitating access to eco-socio-hydrological data and models for stakeholders and researchers. It aims to address transboundary catchment issues in water management, applicable in other Spanish locations.
Outreach#
(More to come)
Useful links#
WWV (🗓️ 2024-2024)#
WWV: Wallonia Water Vineyard
Call type: Wallonia-Brussels International Excellence Grants Programme
PI: Benjamin Mary
Goal:
Goal 1: To fully develop and validate specific data assimilation algorithms for vineyard management.
Goal 2: To predict vine water status in situ by data assimilation through a hydro-geophysical model.
The MSCA GROWING (🗓️ 2019-2022)#
GROWING: Geophysical Roots Observations for Water savING
PI: Benjamin Mary
Goal: develop our capability of understanding, through measuring and modeling, the actions of the root system on water state and fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system.
Consortium: UNIPD/LBLN
Website: link
Fig. 7 Figure illustrating the 3D position of sensors around the plant and simulation showing the distribution of current voltage after a current stimuli into the root system © B. Mary#
Abstract#
Water scarcity is the biggest threat to world food production. A third of water use in Europe goes to the agricultural sector but many regions, especially in the south, are still going thirsty. The EU-funded project GROWING is working with farmers, academics and stakeholders in the private sector to develop practical new tools and services for arboriculture, viticulture and agronomy. Its solution is based on an advanced plant root phenotyping technology, above- and below-ground monitoring system and a data assimilation scheme to construct a model of water distribution.
Outreach#
See publications section
Useful links#
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/842922
WASA (🗓️ 2016 - 2019)#
WASA: WAter Saving in Agriculture
PI: G. Cassiani, Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Geoscienze
Role: co-PI during the second part of the project with tasks ranging from project management to project outputs redaction.
Start date: Friday, April 1, 2016
Goal: technological developments for the sustainable management of limited water resources in the Mediterranean area
Call type: ERANETMED JOINT CALL ON Renewable Energies, Water Resources and their connections for the Mediterranean Region
Consortium:
Università degli Studi di Padova (IT)
Università degli Studi di Catania (IT)
Ministry of Agriculture (IT)
Universidade de Lisboa (PT)
Institut Agronomique et Veterinaire Hassan II (Morocco)
CERTE (Tunisia)
Benha University (Egypt)
Cukurova University (Turkey)
Website: link
Abstract#
The project aims to develop, test and consolidate an operational protocol aimed at reducing water consumption for the irrigation of high value-added crops, typical of the Mediterranean region, with important socio-economic consequences for current and future scenarios of possible scarcity of water resources. The protocol is defined through a combination of scientific, technical and training activities conducted by nine partners distributed in the Mediterranean basin.
The aim of the project is therefore to build, refine and disseminate technical skills in irrigation management that specifically address the needs of the Euro-Mediterranean region. These skills must be able to be introduced and maintained in arid or semi-arid agricultural production areas, and must be based on simple but physically robust models of water use, and on inexpensive but reliable methodologies for monitoring soil moisture and state of crops.
Fig. 8 Electrical Tomography Survey along Orange trees in Tunis (CERTE) © B. Mary#