SIRIUS has identified several horizontal issues which cut across all the research and development activities of the Project. In each of these areas, the SIRIUS consortium has unanimously adopted an overarching policy and appointed a horizontal issues manager to oversee the development of the appropriate mechanisms to make sure that the project and the consortium follow a coherent approach.
The backbone of the downstream service stimulation and validation activities will be a set of eight Case Studies, to be performed in selected pilot areas in Spain, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Egypt, India, Mexico, and Brazil (abbreviated in the following as ES, IT, RO, TR, EG, IN, MX, and BR, respectively). These Cases have been selected according to the diversity of conditions (source of water, technical and management skills, etc.) across the European and Southern Mediterranean, Asia, and Latin America and to the availability of data, information, and knowledge from previous or ongoing activities. The project’s focus on eight different pilot areas creates a matrix-like structure with the same overall objectives and approaches applied in these different environments. The key characteristics of each pilot area will result in different aspects of the activities being emphasised in each.
The overall goal of SIRIUS is
To establish innovative and new GMES service capacities for the irrigation water management user community with the vision of bridging and integrating sustainable food production with fair economic competitiveness, and within wise water governance scenarios that prevent water conflicts in water-scarce areas.