On 17 April 2018, WP5 held a successful workshop at ADAS in Boxworth, UK. The objective was to demonstrate and discuss some of the decision support tools (DSTs) being applied in Europe to help farmers/policy makers/water companies promote good practices for reducing nitrate and pesticide pollution of surface water and groundwater. The following DSTs where presented:

• FARMSCOPER, Wateraware, Slugaware and Check it out (UK)
• Mark Online, Crop Protection Online, Farm Tracking, Kemitjek and Target Econ N (DK)
• Catchment Lake Modelling network (NO)
• Düngeplanung (DE)
• Environmental Yardstick for pesticides (NL)
• SIRIS (FR)
• FITO-INFO (SL)

Some of these DSTs will be demonstrated and/or tested in the FAIRWAY case study sites.

The European Commission is investing almost 10 million euros from its research and innovation budget (under the Horizon 2020 programme) in two projects, FAIRWAY and WaterProtect, to deliver new solutions, proven good practices and innovative governance models to protect drinking water resources from nutrient and pesticide pollution. FAIRWAY and WaterProtect held their launch event on December 6th 2017 in Brussels together with the key European stakeholders and Commission services. The launch event was introduced by Lara Passante from the Commission’s Research Executive Agency (REA) highlighting the important impact of both projects in bringing together research, stakeholders, farmers and citizens to have a positive impact on drinking water sources. The Water Task force, a joint initiative of DGAgri and DGEnv, was represented by Claudia Muresan, and has the task to improve the economic and environmental performance of farms and the long-term availability of water. Both projects will deliver important contributions and experience from their case studies and action labs to the Task Force, and will connect to activities of the EIP Water action groups and EIP Agri operational groups. The projects will also be very important for the drinking water producers according to Arjen Frentz from Eureau, referring to the Water Framework Directive and the ambition to reduce costs for water treatment.

See also »Presentations given at the launch event and the introductions to both projects.

On 6 December 2017, a workshop on "Identifying barriers and issues in integrating scientific support for EU policy by actors at EU level" was held in Brussels. The event was organised and led by Fairway partner University of Ljubljana and its team members. Participants, representing different stakeholder groups (for example European commission’s representatives, water company representatives, researchers etc.) discussed together in small groups.

The workshop was based on a modified World café method, were participants tackled and discussed four main questions:

1. What do you consider to be the main issues on the EU level related to drinking water resource protection against diffuse pollution of nitrates and pesticides from agriculture in EU? ;
2. What do you consider to be the main barriers in solving the issues in the EU regulations related to drinking water resource protection against diffuse pollution of nitrates and pesticides from agriculture in EU?;
3. In your opinion how the relationship between science and policy in the EU regulations is reflected in EU legislation, with special attention to drinking water resource protection against diffuse pollution of nitrates and pesticides from agriculture?;
4. In your opinion how the system at EU level can be improved, i.e. what are the possible solutions for integrated scientific support for EU policy related to drinking water resource protection against diffuse pollution of nitrates and pesticides from agriculture?

As part of the work in Work Package 7, workshop results, together with data collected from individual interviews will be used for an evaluation report on barriers and issues in providing integrated scientific support for EU policy.

On 23 – 24 November 2017, a meeting for all the FAIRWAY work packages was held in Naples. The meeting was hosted by Professor Gianni Quaranta of MEDES and 43 members of the consortium participated. A workshop was held on setting up the multi-actor platforms in the 13 FAIRWAY case studies. There were also sessions in which the progress of the work on measures, monitoring indicators, and decision support tools was discussed. The first results of the assessment of EU policies affecting drinking water quality were presented. The communication and dissemination strategy of FAIRWAY was also discussed.