Proiecte
SoS2LearnDBS: Source to Sea: Leveraging Community Knowledge and Action for Restoring the Danube River Basin and the Black Sea Region
Acronim: SoS2LearnDBS
| Responsible / Lead: | Dr. Albert Scrieciu, CS II |
| Coordinator: | INOVA+ – Innovation Services, SA, Portugal |
| Beneficiary: | GeoEcoMar |
| Funder / Funding body: | European Commission |
| Funding scheme: | HORIZON Europe |
| Duration: | 48 months |
| Start date: | 01.09.2025 |
| End date: | 31.08.2029 |
SoS2LearnDBS: Source to Sea: Leveraging Community Knowledge and Action for Restoring the Danube River Basin and the Black Sea Region
Acronym: SoS2LearnDBS
The SoS2LearnDBS – Source to Sea project extends GeoEcoMar’s long-standing research on the Danube–Danube Delta–Black Sea system within a wider Horizon Europe partnership dedicated to aquatic ecosystem restoration. The project promotes a source-to-sea approach, bringing together research, stakeholder engagement, water literacy and community-led solutions to address environmental pressures across the Danube River Basin and the Black Sea region.
SoS2LearnDBS responds to major environmental challenges affecting the Danube–Black Sea system, including water pollution, biodiversity loss, eutrophication, habitat degradation and climate-change impacts. By creating learning communities, the project enables citizens, practitioners, public authorities and experts to exchange knowledge and co-develop locally adapted solutions for sustainable water management and ecosystem restoration.
The project also includes cascade funding and technical assistance for community-led pilot actions that contribute to the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”. These actions focus on habitat restoration and protection, pollution prevention and the sustainable blue economy across five target regions: Upper Danube, Middle Danube, Lower Danube, Danube Delta and Black Sea.
Within SoS2LearnDBS, GeoEcoMar leads Work Package 2 – Support the Implementation of Community-Led Actions (Pillar 1), active from Month 1 to Month 44. This work package supports the development and implementation of community-led actions contributing to the restoration of aquatic ecosystems across the project area.
GeoEcoMar is also involved throughout the project, contributing scientific expertise, stakeholder engagement, capacity-building support and knowledge exchange activities. Through this role, the institute helps strengthen the connection between research, local communities and practical restoration actions in the Danube–Black Sea region.
- To enhance community capacity and participation in restoration activities by developing and implementing tailored capacity-building programs;
- To develop scalable and replicable environmental restoration models that can be adapted to different regions and community contexts;
- To foster the integration of traditional ecological knowledge with modern scientific methods in restoration practices;
- To ensure the long-term sustainability and ethical inclusivity of restoration efforts through continuous community involvement and protection of cultural heritage;
- To establish and maintain robust technical assistance and support networks to facilitate the successful implementation and monitoring of community-led restoration actions.
Partners:
INOVA+ - INNOVATION SERVICES, SA (Portugal), STEINBEIS 2I GMBH (Germany), ADRM SDRUZENIE ASOCIACIJA NA DUNAVSKITE OBSTINI-DUNAV (Bulgaria), UNIZAG-FSB SVEUCILISTE U ZAGREBU, FAKULTET STROJARSTVA I BRODOGRADNJE (Croatia), INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU GEOLOGIE SI GEOECOLOGIE MARINA - GeoEcoMar (Romania), BOKU UNIVERSITAET FUER BODENKULTUR WIEN (Austria),DDNI INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE-DEZVOLTARE DELTA DUNARII (Romania), UB UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA (Spain), PKS PRIVREDNA KOMORA SRBIJE (Serbia), International Association for Danube Research (IAD) (Austria), VSC-DA RAZVOJNA AGENCIJA VUKOVARSKO-SRIJEMSKE ZUPANIJE (Croatia), MUNBUD BUDAPEST FOVAROS ONKORMANYZATA (Hungary)