The overarching objective of the GOTHAM project is to develop and validate a user-driven tool that enables effective groundwater governance to ultimately preserve the quantity and quality of this strategic resource in the Mediterranean basin. The GOTHAM Tool (GTool) uses an integrated methodological approach that targets optimal allocation of water resources from an environmental, social and economic perspective, including stakeholder knowledge, priorities and behavior. One of the main strengths of the tool is that it provides a common framework for collaboration and engagement of the different water users (mainly, agricultural communities but also municipal and industrial users), as well as other relevant stakeholders such as water producers/operators and regulator(s). The GTool will enable them to exchange information in order to reach the optimal water governance at each point in time as well as in future scenarios.

The concept of the proposed GTool targets effective groundwater governance for the improvement of the management and preservation of this essential and strategic resource. This effective groundwater management remains an important and complex challenge in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, but is essential to ensure long-term sustainable use of the resource. In this regard, GOTHAM integrates multi-criteria decision methods for stakeholder group decision making and social learning, and use socio- hydrological water balance framework as a theoretical foundation for water allocation to evaluate the dynamic balance between the societal and ecological systems in catchments. GOTHAM project presents a bottom-up decision-making approach inspired in this methodological framework.

GOTHAM project presents a scalable and user-specific tool for decentralising water resources management, using big data analysis.

**The proposed user-based tool leverages six analytical modules:

-The water balance and water quality dynamics module uses advanced investigation of the main aquifer formations and real-time monitoring

-The water availability and demand forecasting module predicts different water scenarios and assess their impact on groundwater quality and quantity status using remote-sensing measurements to model agriculture water demand and assess water availability.

-The Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) and aquifer remediation module mobilises multi-criteria analysis to evaluate the feasibility of MAR schemes.

-The agro-economic module simulates the effect of different economic instruments to assess the economic use values and trade-offs between users in alternative resource allocation scenarios.

-The user’s engagement module enables to fix water priorities (water boundary conditions) by water users, taking into consideration water resources to meet water demands.

-The optimised water allocation module calculates the optimal mix of water sources satisfying their requirements

GTool uses data visualization techniques to deliver the results into customisable dashboards tailored for the needs of each stakeholder. Broad outreach activities will take place in Europe, Lebanon and Jordan, therefore contributing to GOTHAM impact maximization. The further development and exploitation (beyond the project) of the GTool will be done by Cetaqua, both on B2B and B2C approaches.

Governance tool for sustainable water resources allocation in the Mediterranean through stakeholder’s collaboration. Towards a paradigm shift in groundwater management by

**Participating Countries:

Budget: 155000 €