Work packages

Workpackage 1. Stakeholders involvement: the multi-actor approach (MAA) of RUEESnexus project

In line with the new Horizon vision, the RUEESnexus project will adopt a multi-actor approach as an ‘interactive innovation model’, to ensure that the project will focus on real needs and problems that rural-urban areas are facing. In WP1, Regional Stakeholder Groups (RSGs) will be set up to co-create, test, validate the project outputs and disseminate them. Crosswise participatory focus groups and RSGs will be involved from the beginning to the end of the project in each region.

Workpackage 2. Building an Environmentally-Extended Rural-Urban Input-Output Matrix to study the EES nexus at the regional level (EE-RUIO)

WP2 will develop rural-urban input-output tables (one for each region), integrated with a monetary valuation of ecosystem services supplied and used by rural-urban areas (WP3). The accounts will be properly adapted to study the EES nexus and extended to flows of water resources (WP4). The EE-RUIO will be used to study the structure of the EES nexus at regional level (sector and rural-urban trade-offs in the use of resources), identifying critical supply chains and estimating implicit flows of ecosystem services among rural and urban regions, and to assess the impact of EU, national and regional policies for sustainability (WP5).

Workpackage 3. Evaluating the ecosystem services provided by rural areas

WP3 will produce monetary estimates of ecosystem services (e.g., recreation services, water) provided by rural areas and used both by rural and urban ones. The relevant ES stock and flow measures will be integrated in the EE-RUIO (WP2) according to the SEEA-EA framework. A supply and a demand for recreation services will be estimated also with the objective of introducing them in the regional satellite accounts for tourism.

Workpackage 4. Estimating physical flow accounts of water resources at regional level

Among the wide range of ES, particular attention will be devoted to water resources as a cross-cutting issue in development policies (Water in All Policies – WiAP). WP4 will produce a set of physical accounts to represent the flows between production activities and water resources both in rural and urban areas. The physical accounts will consider both withdrawals from and discharges to water bodies. A specific focus will be dedicated to agriculture as a sector with a central role in the provision of ES in rural areas. The WP4 will also develop a coherent accounting framework to integrate these estimates with the structure of the EE-RUIO developed in WP2.

Workpackage 5. Assessing the impact of development policies at a regional level

WP5 will use the EE-RUIO (WP2) to develop a linear programming simulation and optimisation model to design and assess policies aiming at increasing the efficiency of the EES nexus at the regional level. In assessing impacts, new green technologies will also be evaluated from a circular economy perspective. Three cases will be developed focusing on the food system and the tourism sector as the leading representative of rural-urban linkage. The simulations will be designed according to the RSG objectives (WP1).

Workpackage 6. Dissemination

The project results will be disseminated through standard academic channels – i.e. publications of papers on peer-reviewed journals, participation to scientific congresses and workshops, organisation of a final conference on project results – as well as through a project website meant as a portal to all project activities and results. The website will be designed as a web based, open access infrastructure, that will make possible to reach out all interested stakeholders, primarily researchers and decision-makers, making available: i) all original data and metadata on the EES nexus produced by the project (e.g. disaggregated accounts for specific industries and institutional sectors, material flows and ecosystem services accounts) for downloading, ii) a series of webinars and other materials for public technical officers to acquaint them to the use of the project results, iii) Technical reports and publications produced by the project.

Workpackage 7. Project management

WP7 aims at setting up and implementing the whole project governance and effectively and efficiently managing project activities towards impacts. It implies three main tasks, namely: (i) coordination of project activities, (ii) administrative and financial management, and (ii) monitoring project activities and implementing corrective actions as required.