Novel Water Retention and Nutrient Management Technologies and Strategies Supporting Agricultural Water Management in Continental, Pannonian and Boreal Regions

Abstract

Urgent water and food security challenges, particularly in continental and boreal regions, need to be addressed by initiatives such as the Horizon 2020-funded project WATer retention and nutrient recycling in soils and streams for improved AGRIcultural production (WATERAGRI). A new methodological framework for the sustainable management of various solutions resilient to climate change has been developed. The results indicate that the effect of the climate scenario is significantly different for peatlands and constructed wetlands. The findings also highlight that remote-sensing-based yield prediction models developed from vegetation indices have the potential to provide quantitative and timely information on crops for large regions or even at the local farm scale. Verification of remotely sensed data is one of the prerequisites for the proper utilization and understanding of data. Research shows that current serious game applications fall short due to challenges such as not clarifying the decision problem, the lack of use of decision quality indicators and limited use of gaming. Overall, WATERAGRI solutions improve water and food security by adapting agriculture to climate change, recycling nutrients and providing educational tools to the farming community. Farmers in small agricultural catchments benefit directly from WATERAGRI, but over the long-term, the general public does as well.