ClimEx-PE presented promising mid-term results at Water4All JTC 2022 meeting in Madrid

On 12 November 2025, the ClimEx-PE consortium took part in the Water4All Mid-term Meeting of funded projects (JTC 2022), hosted by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) in Madrid, Spain. The ClimEx-PE project was represented by project coordinator Judit Mádl-Szőnyi and Ildikó Erhardt from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), and Diana Puigserver from the University of Barcelona (UB). Mádl-Szőnyi delivered the 15-minute project presentation followed by a 10-minute Q&A session with the Water4All Follow-up Group.

In her talk, Judit Mádl-Szőnyi introduced ClimEx-PE’s core idea that aquifers, through groundwater flow systems, can buffer climate extremes, and that local MAR interventions can be scaled up to Nature-Based Managed Aquifer Recharge (NB-MAR) at landscape level. She briefly presented the NaBa-MAR® concept and its EU trademark, the Spanish and Irish case studies (La Muga and Castlewarren), and a set of cross-cutting outputs including the Green Paper on legal–policy frameworks, social and stakeholder surveys, the 90-minute educational package on groundwater–MAR–NB-MAR, as well as key elements of the project’s stakeholder engagement and dissemination activities.

The reviewers praised the overall progress of ClimEx-PE, explicitly commending both the submitted mid-term report and the impressive dissemination, communication and education activities. They raised constructive questions on the groundwater modelling strategy, on how the deliverables will be handled in terms of confidential versus public outputs, and on the treatment of ethical aspects, especially regarding surveys, stakeholder engagement and data management. The discussion confirmed that all project commitments, objectives and scope remain on track.

Beyond individual project feedback, the mid-term meeting proved to be an excellent platform for cross-project collaboration within Water4All. During discussions and networking, ClimEx-PE identified concrete cooperation opportunities with several sister projects, notably MARESURE, DATASET and AQUIGROW, helping to further amplify the scientific and societal impact of ClimEx-PE in the second half of the project.