In the Mediterranean Region, irrigated agriculture contributes 75% to the final production. The continued use of these water resources for irrigation will probably put the agro-systems and the environment at risk from salinization, soil compaction and undesirable ions toxicity. Soil secondary salinization affects an estimated 1 to 3 million hectares in the enlarged EU, mainly in the Mediterranean countries. It is regarded as a major cause of desertification.

A new strategy of water management could be a key method for desertification prevention. Actually, there is a need for technologies that increase water use efficiency and make additional (non-conventional) water sources available for fertigation, thereby decreasing water scarcity and the discharge of water and nutrients to the environment.

The relation between high and low spatial resolution methods still remains unresolved in irrigation studies and water management planning under plots which account with heterogeneity. The use of advanced information technologies in combination with multiple proximal sensors, to characterize the spatial variability of edaphic properties influencing crop yield will improve the delineation of site-specific irrigation management units to manage salinity and soil moisture under degraded water reuse and/or drought conditions.

For the preservation of profitable intensive agriculture that respects the environment, are needed innovative agricultural projects incorporating state of the art technologies in water reuse with multidisciplinary studies. The ASSIST project is ambitious because the combination of all these technologies has not yet been proven in real-situations for use in agriculture.

It covers several scientific disciplines, including: resources sustainability, agricultural engineering, environmental chemistry, soil and plant biology or reuse of degraded water. The project will integrate the expertise in measuring and monitoring salinity from field to regional scale with the expertise in saline reclaimed water use developed during the last 10 years in CEBAS-CSIC.

It is expected that this project (at the crossover of environmental sciences, biology, chemistry, agriculture and engineering) will generate the development of a methodology and a final tool that result in better understanding of the short and long-term effects of using saline degraded water on irrigation, promoting the expansion of water recycling for agricultural porpoise and ensuring field sustainability and public safety. Thus, it will have a strong impact in the agriculture, but also in other fields, as wastewater treatment, where this type of water management is of relevance.

The ASSIST project is in line with the Strategic Research Agenda of the EIP Water, and more specifically with one of its priorities ¿ water reuse and recycling.

Finally, the develop of this research project on the Irrigation Department, will carry out a translational research approach, in which the scientific-technological knowledge of different areas of activity is combined, towards the achievement of a common objective. This collaboration model is innovative and generates additional potential.