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The scope of this deliverable includes all management tasks necessary for the smooth execution of the project activities during the final period of the project. In particular, it provides the overall planning and monitoring of the consortium work and the tracking of the project deliverables of high scientific quality. The Gantt chart is also presented to monitor the progress of the milestones and deliverables throughout the project. Other activities also performed are the coordination between the involved partners, effective communication and reporting to the PRIMA authorities as well as preparation of end-term reports with support from all partners. Within this deliverable is ensured the review of the WPs findings and the communication of the results to the consortium. In addition, the scientific consistency and the continuous monitoring and evaluation process, the establishment of a quality management system based on the current practice of the project coordinator’s institution and standard operating procedures developed in other EU funded projects are also ensured. All the above were achieved through the good communication between the partners by regular monthly or annual project coordination meetings as well as the final conference. Particularly, regular monthly Zoom meetings were organized, further than the annual online or in presence coordination meetings, where the partners were discussing any issues that arose and exchanging data needed for each WP. In addition, the final conference of the project was organized as a Common International Conference with the MEDSAL PRIMA project in 27th-30th September 2022, where the final results from both projects were presented to the scientific community and stakeholders and scientific ideas and aspects were shared and exchanged among the participants. Finally, this deliverable presents the difficulties raised during the last year of the project and the one-year extension of the project duration along with the general achievements of the Sustain-COAST project on Sustain-COAST Quantified Impact and Key Performance Indicators as well as onSustain-COAST objectives.

This Deliverable is the second and final version of the Data Management Plan (DMP) updating the first version, released in November 2021, after the Sustain-COAST mid-term report reviewing. The DMP aims to consolidate the data management strategy of the project, describing the data collected and produced within the project and providing a guide on how this data will be managed, stored, disseminated and preserved. This updated version resolves any pending topic of the first version.

This report describes the methodology used to enhance local stakeholders' capacity to manage water resources sustainably and to reduce their quantitative and qualitative pressure on these resources. The three-stage approach was designed to be utilized consistently across all case studies in the project. So far, it has enabled the collaborative development of particular, context-specific solutions. As a result, the target group varies depending on the characteristics of each context: in the case of Wadi El Bey, it is industrialists; in the case of Malia, it is farmers and hotels; and in the case of Arborea and Erdemli, it is mostly farmers. The 4Rs approach is used in the solution design process.

While D6.1 Dissemination and Communication Plan aimed at introducing the overall engagement approach the Sustain-COAST project should follow by laying down the foundations of the Dissemination and Communication (D&C) Strategy and related action plan, the present report aims at providing the readers with a detailed overview of the concrete D&C actions taken to implement the plan since the restart of the project.The main purpose of this document is to showcase how, when, to who and through which channels the current project outputs have been disseminated thus far, also reflecting on the impact achieved through the assessment of the conducted activities. Therefore, the report first details the activities conducted to inform and raise awareness about the project to start attracting interest from the targeted stakeholders. It is the first and most important step towards the early engagement of external stakeholders in the project activities, necessary to lay down solid and sound foundations to conduct the work under the other phases, which in return should support maximising the engagement of relevant stakeholders throughout the project duration. The report then focuses on activities carried out to interact with stakeholders to obtain their feedback on the initial project results and achievements. This two-way communication will contribute greatly towards Sustain-COAST achieving all its objectives. This document also serves as an evaluation framework to report on the performance and impact of the D&C activities carried out, also reflecting best practices and lessons learnt during the execution of the project. It also provides an analysis and update of the indicators of achievement based on the ones defined in D6.1 Communication and Dissemination plan. In summary, all the planned D&C activities have been realised. The identity of the project has been built and heavily promoted via all tools and channels identified in the D&C strategy: the Sustain-COAST website, the Sustain-COAST social media accounts, Sustain-COAST newsletter, the support to Sustain-COAST events and the participation to third party events and the mass media relations.

The objective of this deliverable is to document the progress made in the implementation of Task 4.3, which falls within WP4 (Innovative Governance). WP4 includes the analysis and assessment of the different case studies’ water management governance systems, as well as the implementation of a process of stakeholder engagement through the setting up of participatory platforms, with the aim of triggering dialogue among different water-related stakeholders, using innovative approaches to promote transformative changes, and of exploring mediation techniques for solving environmental water management-related conflicts. As part of WP4, dialogue and stakeholder engagement will be promoted in the four Mediterranean case studies through a participatory approach (Task 4.3). Drawing from Sustain-COAST experience, we highlight the following main lessons learnt on governance for the sustainable management of Mediterranean coastal aquifers

In this work, the living lab is used to co-design innovative institutional arrangements to govern and sustainably manage local water resources. The co-creation process is carried out according to a decentralized participatory and actor-centered approach and using the social learning concept. The stakeholders involved in water management, including local authorities, users, citizens and researchers, are brought together to analyse the sustainability issues of the social-ecological system at the Wadi El Bey watershed level. The researchers have designed the Wadi el Bey living lab as a social arena where the local actors can meet. At the first stage of this process, and until the consensus on the new governance is reached, the actors are guided via various activities such as participatory mapping, inversing role, and expressing motivations and expectations. These interactive activities aimed to build a relevant, comprehensive, and common vision on the issues related to the management of local groundwater resources.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the vulnerability of groundwater to contamination in the Arborea Coastal Aquifer (ACA) on the Sardinia Island (Italy), which is a part of the Mediterranean basin, using the modified AHP-DRASTICLu method based on the Geographical Information System (GIS). In this context, in addition to the criteria, namely; depth to water table (D), net recharge (R), aquifer media (A), soil media (S), topography (T), impact of vadose zone (I) and hydraulic conductivity (C), used in the classical DRASTIC method, the land-use class (Lu) criterion has been added. Pairwise comparisons of these main criteria and their sub-criteria were made using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and the weight values of each sub- and main criteria were calculated. Weighted criteria layers were created by assigning these weight values to the cells in the relevant raster layers in the GIS environment. Finally, these layers were combined in the GIS environment with the Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method and the final vulnerability map was created. Eventually, the final map was reclassified into five classes namely "Very low", "Low", "Moderate", "High" and "Very high". These classes occupied 5%, 11%, 32%, 40%, and 12% of the study area, respectively. Areas of very high vulnerability are mostly irrigated crop areas. Considering the fertilizers used in agriculture, integrated water management needs to be more careful, especially for these highly sensitive areas.

Coastal areas around the Mediterranean basin concentrate population, multi-sector economic activities and agricultural activities. This induces an important need in fresh water and high solicitation of coastal aquifers, which can lead to salt water intrusion. This issue, added to contaminated surface water percolating towards the aquifer, and along with climate change show the urge for innovative groundwater management, especially in coastal areas. The PRIMA SustainCOAST European project aims at exploring innovative governance for sustainable coastal groundwater management and pollution reduction in the context of a changing climate by involving researchers, local populations, water stakeholders and policy makers. The Arborea plain in Sardinia (Italy) is characterized by an intense agricultural activity based on dairy cattle farming (approximately 31.000 livestock units in the district). The area, reclaimed from a lagoon in the 1920s, is intensely used for fodder crops to feed the cattle. Thus, an important drainage network has been developed to maintain the soil in suitable conditions for agriculture. Heterogeneous nitrates contamination of the aquifer system has been highlighted through soil sampling and groundwater monitoring in the Arborea plain in previous studies and the zone is classified as a Nitrates Vulnerable Zone (following Directive 91/676/CEE). The hydrogeology of the study site is characterized by two main aquifers: the upper one, unconfined, hosted in a sandy unit (SHU), separated from the second aquifer, hosted in an alluvial formation (AHU), by lagoon deposits aquitard. In the present study, we show the individual work steps to get from the existing 3D hydrogeological model to a 3D numerical groundwater model using the interactive finite-element simulation system Feflow 7.4. The developed partially unstructured steady-state flow model takes into account the recharge of the aquifer system by surface water, the drainage and irrigation network and the seasonal variation of water volumes drained and spread on the land. Also accounted for are water pumped by farms for technical use and livestock, groundwater flow between the different units and interactions with seawater. Results show the influence ofgroundwater management, especially for agricultural activities, and interaction with surface water, which is highly impacted by anthropic networks (irrigation and drainage). Ongoing research is aimed at quantifying the spatio-temporal distribution of nitrate in the SHU aquifer under transient groundwater flow conditions to compare different water management, climate change and contamination scenarios.