WATERVILL – Innovative solutions for enhancing village water supply and addressing water scarcity in resilient rural and mountainous areas – is an Interreg Euro-MED–funded project tackling water scarcity in rural and mountainous regions of the Mediterranean. These areas often rely on outdated, inefficient, and climate-vulnerable water supply systems. As droughts intensify and infrastructure deteriorates, communities face frequent shortages, poor water quality, and unreliable services, which threaten public health and economic stability.
WATERVILL develops innovative and sustainable solutions to modernise rural water management by combining smart technologies, nature-based strategies, and community-led governance. The project aims to reduce water loss, improve distribution, and increase climate resilience.
Focus
The main focus of the WATERVILL project is to address water scarcity in rural and mountainous areas of the Mediterranean, with four rural and mountainous municipalities in the Balkans acting as pilot territories. This region is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, particularly with regard to water scarcity, as longer and more severe droughts reduce water availability for both agricultural and domestic use. While temperatures rise, water evaporates faster, and with rainfall becoming more unpredictable, water supplies are less reliable, even during the rainy season.
Moreover, the water supply infrastructure in these areas is often outdated and operates outside of official public municipal systems, as many of these networks were built by local communities. This results in frequent shortages, particularly in summer, when population growth driven by tourism further strains the systems due to a sharp rise in water demand.
This situation leads to an inefficient and often unsafe water distribution and management. By bringing these systems under municipal oversight and modernising them, it is possible to improve both water quality and efficiency.
Through research, pilot testing, and large-scale knowledge transfer, WATERVILL aims to deliver sustainable, inclusive and climate-resilient water management models across the Mediterranean.
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