energy

Governments’ Reactions to Anti-Mining Struggles — Remarks on Akbelen Resistance in Turkey

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By: Umay Begüm Külekçi

The 37th Middle East Technical University (METU) International Spring Festival took place in the second week of May in the university campus located in Ankara, Turkey. The four-day festival is organized by the volunteers of International Youth Community — a university student club that organizes social events in METU without any sponsors. The programme of the festival consists of workshops, gigs, food stands, university club activities, and finally, the most anticipated event of the festival, the concerts. Every year, there are different line-ups for each day, and the Devrim stadium welcomes different artists on its stage. This year, on the last day, a guest on stage came to read a letter from Esra Işık, an environmental activist from Milas who was imprisoned during that time. I realized based on the curious faces around me that many people did not have any idea who she was, thus I want to briefly explain her struggle. 

Akbelen Resistance

Esra Işık is the daughter of Nejla Işık who is the headwomen of İkizköy village in Milas, Turkey. İkizköy and many other villages in the region have been actively resisting for many years against the lignite-powered thermal power plant operated by the company YK Enerji. Similar anti-mining resistances have been in effect in other regions of Turkey also. In the last 10 years, this year (2026) in particular, there has been a dramatic increase in mining projects as part of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government’s development policies. All around Turkey, licenses are being issued in large numbers and structural changes are being made to make the fields eligible to the mining projects with the cooperation of state and capital as new profit seeking opportunities. Akbelen Resistance (also known as İkizköy Resistance) in Milas was one of the most heard resistances opposing to these ventures as they have been resisting since 2019 to YK Enerji who is claiming their land and cutting down their olive trees through the urgent expropriation decisions implemented by the state. Through the resistance process, the villagers have gathered support from a variety of actors such as environmental platforms, activists, journalists and academics. 

Figure 1 Selen Çatalyürek, 2023, Instagram (@selen_catalyurekli).

Recent Decisions of State Mechanisms
In January 2026, there was a new urgent expropriation decision published in the Official Gazette that included 676 parcels in İkizköy and near villages to extend the mining field, which would lead to a considerable land grab from the villagers. As the villagers seeked judicial support from the supreme court, the expansion was taking place through uprooting of olive trees, dynamite explosions and exploratory work on the lands of villagers without any prior notification. In fact, similar events have been happening for the last decade in Milas and other regions in Turkey. In early May, the supreme court decided to halt the execution for 194 of the parcels which brought some hope. (YK Enerji, n.d.) Most recently, the decision was expanded to include all 679 parcels.
Esra Işık was a part of the resistance for many years as her family lived in İkizköy village in Milas district in Muğla, Turkey and she was at the forefront when the expert appraisal came for the lands under urgent expropriation. She told the gendarmerie to go away, that no one asked for the permission of the locals to enter their lands and asked why no one was answering their questions. Shortly after, she was arrested and held in prison for 41 days (Bianet, 2026). She highlighted that her arrest was to intimidate others like her and that they will never give up fighting for their lands. In her letter from the prison to students, alumni, staff and other attenders of the festival, she emphasized similar messages and asked for the crowd to sing together “Deniz Üstü Köpürür” (The Sea Foams) by Cem Karaca, a song that highlights the love of homeland. Her wish was quickly fulfilled, creating a beautiful scene of solidarity from miles away.

Figure 2 Screenshot from the video of the moment of Esra Işık’s letter being read. METU Media Society, 2026, Instagram (@odtumedya).

Understanding the Implications 

She was released on May 11, 2026 with the judicial control decision and international travel ban. This is a sentence that has become commonly and widely employed by the state in recent years. However, we know that the criminalization of ecology activists is also a part of the authoritarian mechanism that profits and nurtures the state-capital relation at the cost of its people. All the process from the beginning to the recent news points to how the capital accumulation process is working through the “authoritarian neoliberal developmentalism” of the AKP government in Turkey. As a democratically elected party, AKP acts as anti-democratic and coercive to realize its agenda and one of the most large-scale and recent undertakings are related to energy sector as the world is also experiencing many crisis and frictions because of energy politics such as the war in Iran and Ukraine, and Trump’s intent on occupying Greenland, Venezuela and Cuba. This discussion is in line with the “global extractive imperative” that emphasizes where extractivism, accompanied by authoritarian neoliberalism is regarded as a quick fix for socioeconomic issues in the country. The discourse created around these issues usually includes the company defending themselves before the opponents of the mining project by resorting to either that they are (over)compensating the ecological damage through reforestation and transferring the olive trees elsewhere or highlighting the economic gains that the power plants create through employment and meeting the energy needs of Turkey, aligned with recently pushed governmental energy sovereignty agenda. This is not too different from the discourse created by Turgut Özal, a former prime minister of Turkey. In 1984 in Gökova, Muğla, Özal responded to the thermal power plant concerns of villagers by saying that it will bring civilization and employment while the villagers expressed concerns for their lands and agricultural activity.

Figure 3 Esra Işık dancing to the traditional Turkish dance “Zeybek” with her mother who is the headwomen of İkizköy village and one of the most prominent people in the Akbelen resistance. 2026. Photo taken from the interview conducted by 1+1 Express

Concluding Words

To conclude, although the decision to release Esra Işık and halting the execution decisions for the parcels are achievements for the Akbelen resistance, it is hard to believe it hints at the end of the mining project since similar regime mentalities often allow some breaks to settle the crisis before striking again. However, I also believe that the resistance will only grow stronger as Akbelen shows an impressive determination and strength in terms of its material gains, but also of the immaterial effects it created in the larger scale and for the future resistances.

Umay Begüm Külekçi is a master’s student and research assistant at the Sociology Department of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. umayk@metu.edu.tr

Anatomy of an Anti-GEPP Struggle: Varto

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By: Beyda Ceylan

I have been in Varto/Muş to join the anti-GEPP (Geothermal Power Plant) rally in April 2026. In this text, I give my direct observations about this local struggle which is one of the most successful local resistances in Turkey that I have observed so far. It has not achieved its aim yet, which is stopping the construction of the power plant. However, I think the success comes from the mass support in both local and international levels through an organization called Varto Ekoloji Platformu (Varto Ecology Platform) in only two months. Varto is a district in the Muş Province of Turkey, home primarily to Kurdish Alevis. Its economy is largely based on livestock farming, and the geothermal power plant poses a threat that could put an end to livestock farming in the region. Firstly, I will briefly mention GEPP projects and their harms towards socio-natures together with the social mobilizations against them which have lasted since the beginnings of the 2000s in Turkey. I use the acronym GEPP to denote Geothermal Energy Power Plant throughout this post for clarity. In Turkish contexts, this corresponds to JES (Jeotermal Enerji Santrali), a term that gained widespread use following the boom in geothermal project developments starting in 2004. Then, I will give information about the GEPP project in Varto and the organization of the struggle.

Fig. 1 – The Geothermal map of Turkey and the Varto region, modified by Şakir Şimşek, 1997.

The memory of the destruction caused by other GEPPs in Turkey

Firstly I should emphasize that the memory of the other struggles against the GEPPs in Turkey has played a role in the emergence of this kind of mass resistance in Varto. Especially in Germencik/Aydın, the GEPPs have caused the ecocide and destroyed approximately 500 000 fig trees in that region. According to the data Ethemcan Turhan provides in their article with Cem İskender Aydın, which is Hegemonik akıntıya karşı durmak: Türkiye’de genişleyen yenilenebilir enerji karşıtı mücadeleler üzerine düşünceler published in Praksis in 2023, Turkey has increased its electric generation capacity from geothermal power plants from 15 MW to 1686 MW between 2005 and 2022, ranking fourth globally. It was particularly driven by the government’s access to international climate finance from the World Bank and EBRD for renewable power plant projects following the beginning of 2000s. The government supports the privatization of the energy sector in the country and gives subsidies and cheap credits to the companies for the construction of especially HEPPs and GEPPs in these years. Thus, Turkey has faced many socio-ecological conflicts after those years.

Fig. 2 people at the rally, Author’s photography – April 25, 2026

The process by which resistance takes root

The process towards the resistance in Varto has actually started in 2023 through expert inspections but the local people have been told that it was because of earthquake fault lines. The people gave them permission because they were afraid of earthquakes. It became clear when the village heads (muhtar) were called to gather to sign some documents. The resistance has been ongoing ever since the project was announced to the public in February 2026.. The resistance began when the village headman of İçmeler, a village of Varto, and several villagers gathered and went from village to village to explain the harmful effects of geothermal energy power plants to people’s livelihoods. They have gained mass support from them in a very short time. The people of Varto are mostly subsistence farmers, they make their living from livestock farming and agriculture.  Because the production of geothermal energy power plants will affect the 22 villages of Varto and Karlıova (another town of Muş near Varto)  and cause the destruction on the vast pastures and watersheds of the villages that peasants’ lives mostly depend on to live, they have joined the struggle against the project and started to create village assemblies to make the decision-making processes democratic. Also, they have not limited themselves at the local scale, but they have created councils composed of migrants from Varto in the cities of both Turkey and Europe. They formed the Varto Ecology Platform, consisting of representatives from these councils and also other democratic mass organizations such as Alevi associations, other environmental organizations and organizations of the Kurdish freedom movement.

Fig. 3 People marching, Author’s photography – April 25, 2026

Key factors contributing to the spread of the resistance

In this part, I want to emphasize the factors that, in my opinion, were key to this resistance gaining widespread support. The first one is the leadership of the head of Içmeler village that I mentioned before. We can see the importance of the leadership and the role of muhtars[1] in the local resistances to inform and mobilize people against the projects because villagers mostly trust their headman. The muhtar of İçmeler village has also had experience coming from being a political subject of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in the region. This made it easy for the muhtar to mobilize its people. And now, we come to the second factor, the people of Varto are also part of the Kurdish Freedom Movement. They are already political subjects and they are much more aware of the Turkish state which subjugated their Kurdish-Alevi identities for a very long time. They already know how to organize and resist. The third one is the belief in unity with nature in Alevism, which is similar to Mother Earth understanding, which is Pachamama, of Latin America. The ecological consciousness of these people in this region plays an important role in people’s resistance. Also, even though they had moved elsewhere mostly due to economic reasons, they still maintained close ties to their hometown. Because of the combination of these factors they can create international and national networks with the people of Varto from many regions. They could organize demonstrations in different parts of Turkey and Europe. In this way, they also secured financial resources needed for self-organization of this movement.

The other important factor was the legitimacy they created with the anti-imperialist discourse against the American-based company. When we visited the muhtar of the village, he mentioned that it was crucial to gain legitimacy from every circle in Turkey, especially from Turkish people. It is because Kurdish people have been criminalized for several years by the Turkish state when they resist subjugation. Turkish people tend to see Kurdish people as terrorists when they mobilize. The people of Varto decided to emphasize the company being American. Thus, anti-GEPP resistance has become an anti-imperialist resistance where Turkish people might feel a sense of commonality and not view it as an anti-state uprising. It was interesting the muhtar said that even the Vali and the Kaymakam[2] did not pose much of an obstacle to the resistance providing covert support in that way.

Fig. 4 A shepherd and a native of the village of İçmeler in Varto, Author’s photography – April 26, 2026

We also heard from the muhtar during our visit to him that the company has already begun to realize they had hit a solid rock and regretted the project. However, Turkey’s resource extraction regime is dependent on extractivism and these kinds of energy projects. Despite all opposition, the company could come with the security forces and suddenly start drilling overnight as we have had many examples of it from other cases. If there is no institutional capacity to safeguard people’s rights, is there any chance for people other than to resort to direct action?

—

Beyda Ceylan is a master’s student in the Department of Sociology at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests lie at the intersection of ecology and labor. She also plays an active role in the environmental movement in Turkey. She currently serves as a coordinator for a youth environmental organization called “Doğanın Çocukları”.

[1] the term means the headman of the village in Turkish

[2] Despotic offices inherited from the era of the sultanate. They are generally used to undermine the autonomy of local governments and obstruct democratic processes in Turkey.

Renewable Energies: The challenge of sustainability in peripheral communities in Brazil

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Por: Armindo Teodósio, Thiago Silva, Andressa Nunes, Melina Gomes

Several activities that make up contemporary human life, whether in central societies with concentrated wealth or in peripheral regions, are compromised without access to quality electricity. For some, it is now a matter of renewing the energy matrix that makes our societies operate, due to the enormous challenges that humanity faces in the age of climate change. For others, it is a matter of universalizing access to electricity as a central element of quality of life within the contemporary way of life that we replicate in different regions of the planet. One pursuit does not exclude the other. When they converge, we are moving towards initiatives that address climate change within what we call a just transition, climate justice and/or environmental anti-racism. Our article addresses these challenges in the Brazilian context.

Discussing energy from the Brazilian perspective, means discussing the continuity of energy services. Issues related to the availability and quality of electricity are daily concerns for the Brazilian people in different regions of the country. If, until a few years ago, the difficulty of accessing energy and the frequent interruption of its supply were a major problem for peripheral communities throughout our territory, the energy crisis is currently manifesting itself in the city with the largest GDP in the country, the city of São Paulo, which struggles with frequent and prolonged power outages due to extreme climate events. We need to advance both in the universalization of access to energy in our country and in the provision of energy security, in addition to further advancing the supply from less polluting matrices and those that generate less negative impacts on the environment.

One of the positive aspects of the Brazilian energy matrix is ​​that, when compared to other nations, it places us in a prominent position in terms of lower impacts on the environment. However, environmental complexity requires us to be increasingly critical and demanding with the solutions we seek. This is also evident in the supply of electricity. An example of this point is the debate and weighing of the Belo Monte alternative as a strategy to provide electricity to the North region and to support energy generation in the country. Even in a less polluting and degrading matrix, that derived from hydroelectric plants, when Belo Monte is brought into the debate, nothing becomes evident or clear in terms of sustainability. On the contrary, the disservice to sustainability becomes evident in a powerful way.

In the Brazilian context, discussing the quality of energy for homes and families is not a new topic. Nor is the discussion about what the future of energy will be like for transportation, for instance, which is the sector which is one of the sectors that consumes the most energy in Brazil and in the world – about 28% of all the energy we produce. What is relatively new are the forms of energy consumption that will be available in the face of population growth and consumption challenges.

An interesting point is that talking about the future of energy is not only about how large energy concessionaires will guarantee the uninterrupted supply for municipalities, but also about discussing small-scale renewable energy production that can supply rural areas. It is about treating the service provided by large distributors as complementary and not just exclusive. It is about pointing out, perceiving and following possible paths to guarantee electricity consumption for our families.

In different parts of the world, movements based on so-called Community-Based Renewable Energy, with different local governance arrangements, have emerged. These experiences seek to materialize in the daily lives of communities and cities the access to and generation of energy on a sustainable basis, transforming the general understanding of societies about strategies for a transition towards sustainable ways of life. The governance of these projects, as a rule, activates local social capital as an asset for raising awareness, engaging and acting on the part of citizens in creating local conditions for access, generation, and distribution of energy on a sustainable basis.

These experiences serve as inspiration for us to think about and fight for community and grassroots strategies to expand the  access, generation and distribution of energy on a sustainable basis  in Brazil. By studying these experiences, we can also learn and try to overcome important challenges related to cultural and social barriers, which increase when we talk about effectively building successful community-based renewable energy experiences in the country. These challenges are linked to gender, ethnic-racial issues and the vulnerability of communities located on the periphery of large centers that concentrate infrastructure, political and economic power and quality of life in the territories. Thinking about the expansion of renewable energy without considering inequalities, as well as the fallacies and myths behind some supposedly sustainable proposals for energy generation, is to build alternatives that will further restrict access to quality energy and deconstruct the foundations for a transition towards sustainability.

In countries like Brazil, marked by the important and rich presence of black people in the social, cultural, political and economic history of the nation, but unfortunately in a condition of enslavement, exploitation, degradation, silencing and erasure of their identities and cultures, inequalities in access to energy, especially the energy produced on a sustainable basis, are abysmal. Proof of this finding is that the lack of access to quality energy in the country is marked by race, territoriality and gender: it is recurrently present in quilombola territories, indigenous territories and in urban and rural spaces with a prevalence of black communities.

Figure 1 Quilombola Territory in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Source: Authors Archive.

Figure 2 Indigenous Territory in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Homem e mulher posando para foto O conteúdo gerado por IA pode estar incorreto.

Source: Authors Archive.

Finally, in the rush to achieve energy transition, in which policies, programs and projects reorder the allocation of economic resources and generate an increase in political and social capital, especially in terms of legitimizing economic and productive initiatives, there is misinformation and ignorance about the effective contribution to sustainability in expanding, for example, the fleet of electric cars and waste incineration. There are important issues to be addressed and debates about “greenwashing” when the term energy recovery is adopted to try to give a sustainable character to large-scale waste incineration activities, which could and should be reinserted into the economy through more and better circular economy strategies. All of this affects the public debate on an effectively renewable and sustainable energy production system, making it even more complex and “swampy”.

In the Brazilian context, there is a lack of a more robust, effective and widely disseminated strategy for the design, implementation and evaluation of public energy policies based on community-based action and the effective promotion of sustainability, beyond the false, unsustainable and ecologically incorrect solutions of promoting renewable energy. There is also a lack of greater sensitivity and reorientation of the business sector towards sustainable energy. It is necessary to create space to bring together the city’s initiatives, draw the attention of city halls and state and federal governments to the issue, and invite the population to access consistent information on the contribution (or not) of the range of energies that are said to be renewable. Discussing the future of energy means thinking about equality in terms of just economic and social development. It is preparing the population for the challenges that lie ahead and that will soon have an impact  in contexts in which disasters and catastrophes tend to be more frequent due to climate change.

Armindo Teodósio (Téo), Thiago Silva, Andressa Nunes, Melina Gomes are Researchers-Extension Workers of the Knowledge and Innovations for Sustainability Extension Program (SABIÁS). They belong to the Center for Research in Ethics and Social Management (NUPEGS), of the Graduate Program in Administration, of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais. The author Thiago Silva is a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and his research contemplates possibilities and risks in community-based renewable energies in Brazil. The authors would like to thank the research for funding and the approval of research grants from the Minas Gerais Research Foundation (FAPEMIG) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). 

E-mail: thiago.silva@academico.ufpb.br

Energias renováveis, paisagens e inovação social: o projeto PEARLS

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Por: Ana Delicado e Mónica Truninger

É já longa a tradição de investigação sobre questões energéticas no GI SHIFT. Da história da energia nuclear ao futuro da energia da fusão, da pobreza energética às práticas de consumo dos jovens, têm sido múltiplos os projetos envolvendo investigadores do GI. Sobre energias renováveis houve já um projeto financiado pela FCT e está agora em curso outro financiado pela Comissão Europeia. É deste último que vos vamos falar.

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Democracia Energética e Comunidades de Energia Renovável em Portugal: uma agenda de investigação

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Por: Vera Ferreira

A transição energética tem assumido uma preponderância sem precedentes no debate político à escala europeia e nacional. A descentralização da produção de energia e a expansão das comunidades de energia renovável (CER) são vistas como condições necessárias para uma transição energética mais justa e democrática. A democracia energética apresenta-se, assim, como uma alternativa aos sistemas energéticos dominantes. Os protagonistas que encabeçam este movimento priorizam o controlo democrático do setor energético, atribuindo um novo significado à própria noção de energia, que passa a ser entendida como um bem público e um direito universal (e não como uma mercadoria). Em última instância, a democracia energética procura fomentar a justiça social, em detrimento da acumulação de riqueza, empoderar as comunidades, reforçando o seu papel na propriedade, controlo e gestão do setor energético, e redistribuir o poder político e económico, almejando uma democratização mais ampla da sociedade.

No caso português, a articulação entre democracia energética e CER carece de aprofundamento. Neste sentido, é necessário introduzir a democracia energética no debate académico nacional, antecipando as suas potencialidades conceptuais e analíticas no que respeita ao estudo das CER. Embora estas se encontrem nas primeiras etapas de implementação, é expectável que se venham a afirmar como atores-chave da transição energética ao longo dos próximos anos. Por conseguinte, torna-se pertinente avaliar em que medida poderão contribuir para veicular os princípios da democracia energética em Portugal.

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Dilemas climáticos: o caso da exploração de petróleo, gás e lítio em Portugal

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Por Madalena Duque dos Santos

Entre 2007 e 2015 o estado português celebrou uma série de contratos de concessão para a prospeção, pesquisa, desenvolvimento e exploração de hidrocarbonetos no mar e território português, ao abrigo de legislação desatualizada, cuja revisão só se verificou em 2017. Este período foi igualmente marcado por ambiciosos compromissos climáticos nacionais, europeus e internacionais, que culminaram na promessa do cumprimento da neutralidade carbónica em Portugal em 2050.

Para a controvérsia em torno da atribuição destes contratos de concessão contribuiu o modo obscuro e pouco democrático que caracterizou a tomada destas decisões, em vésperas de eleições, não tendo sido aplicada qualquer metodologia participativa ou consultiva às populações, organizações ou autarquias locais, resultando numa ausência de coordenação e comunicação entre entidades e atores.

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Local voluntary carbon markets – what they are, how they went at COP26 and what to expect next

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By: Jieling Liu & Lurdes Ferreira

1. Why focus on local voluntary carbon markets?

The Paris Agreement of 2015 set forth a global target of limiting the warming in this century to 2o C or even more ambitiously to just 1.5o C, in order to contain the catastrophic impacts of anthropogenic climate change planet Earth is facing. National governments voluntarily made respective emissions reduction targets called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to implement the Paris Agreement, of which the COP26 this year has welcomed the first update cycle. Voluntary carbon markets (VCM) emerged as a potentially effective tool to support the NDCs under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement as it encourages voluntary contribution.  

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A eletrificação da vida

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Por: Ana Horta

Para Lenin só seria possível alcançar o comunismo quando a União Soviética estivesse completamente eletrificada. Apenas a eletricidade permitiria desenvolver a produção industrial em grande escala, necessária à concretização do comunismo. Assim, em 1920 foi concebido um plano de recuperação e desenvolvimento económico centrado na eletrificação do país que permitisse essa transição em dez anos. Cem anos depois, a eletrificação também está no centro de outra grande ambição coletiva: a sustentabilidade.

Vejamos o caso de Portugal. Em sintonia com o pacto ecológico da União Europeia, o plano nacional para alcançar a neutralidade carbónica até 2050 baseia-se na “eletrificação da economia”. Pretende-se substituir os combustíveis fósseis por eletricidade em todos os setores da sociedade, enquanto se procura que esta seja cada vez mais produzida através de fontes renováveis (incluindo através do hidrogénio). Simultaneamente este plano também promove uma “transição digital” que permita ganhar eficiência a vários níveis e que contribua para tornar a economia mais competitiva. A digitalização supõe, obviamente, maior recurso a tecnologias de informação e comunicação e consequentemente a eletrificação de mais processos e setores da sociedade. Ambicionam-se redes inteligentes de distribuição de energia, soluções inteligentes para a mobilidade, tecnologias inteligentes, uma administração pública inteligente, edifícios e cidades inteligentes, tudo isto na lógica de um “crescimento inteligente”, como preconizado no Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência.

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A neutralidade carbónica em Portugal: uma transição (in)justa?

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Por: Vera Ferreira

Em 2016, o Governo Português comprometeu-se a alcançar a neutralidade carbónica no horizonte 2050. No início de 2021 – que inaugura a década que será, segundo o Executivo, a mais decisiva na transição para a neutralidade carbónica –, vivemos o agudizar das dramáticas consequências sanitárias e socioeconómicas da pandemia de Covid-19. Assim, esta transição irá decorrer num contexto de justaposição de crises – pandémica, socioeconómica e climática –, sendo passível de reproduzir e/ou exacerbar desigualdades e exclusões multidimensionais.

Importa, por conseguinte, analisar a política energética adotada pelo Governo, procurando antecipar se estão reunidas as condições para assegurar uma transição socioecológica justa, isto é, em que os benefícios são equitativamente distribuídos pelo conjunto da sociedade, e os custos são suportados pelos setores que mais lucraram com a economia dos combustíveis fósseis.

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Towards a ‘water-smart’ society in Europe

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By Carla Gomes

When discussing water scarcity and the dire scenarios for water access in the future, European populations are probably not the first that come to mind. Yet, climate change, a growing population and competing demands between sectors such as agriculture, industry and tourism are putting pressure over water resources across the continent, and will be driving a profound shift in how we manage the ‘blue gold’ over the next few decades. Water scarcity has in fact become a serious threat, in particular for Southern Europe. In addition, over 40% of the water needed to provide products consumed in Europe is used outside EU territory, which puts pressure over global freshwater resources.

In response to an increasingly challenging scenario, improving water use efficiency is crucial. For this reason the European Commission launched in 2017 the H2020 call ‘Building a water-smart economy and society’. This call resulted in the approval of B-WaterSmart: Accelerating Water Smartness in Coastal Europe, a 4-year project coordinated by the German institute IWW Water Centre, in which the ICS-ULisboa has been involved since September 2020, being responsible for the development of the Work Package ‘Society, Governance & Policy’.

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