SHUI is a network that integrates experiments carried out by its 19 partners (both academic and SMEs), operating in different environmental conditions and cultural systems, located in the EU and in China. It is configured as a platform for the most advanced research on the management of water-soil resources in conditions of scarce water availability, in order to better understand the links between agricultural land hydrology and sustainability and to provide a systematic assessment of adaptation and mitigation methods.

Soil is considered a non-renewable resource because, once degraded, the restoration of its productivity is an extremely slow process. Given its importance for agriculture, livestock and the provision of ecosystem services, keeping it in good condition is vitally important.

For the proper management of agricultural land, the availability of scientific tools that are easy to apply, low-cost, and that deal with the assessment of the quality and functioning of the soil, is of great importance.

This joint action brings together 67 research groups from 17 countries and aims to improve the characterisation of European food security due to climate change and to enhance adaptation capacity through improvements in modeling of impacts of climate change.

It includes 3 coordinated and integrated networks on:

1) crops;

2) grasslands and livestock and

3) economics and trade and has developed a joint research plan

CASCADE focuses on several ecosystems in arid areas in southern Europe in order to better understand catastrophic shifts that could cause serious losses in biodiversity and related ecosystem services. The project proposes methodologies that predict when these ecosystems are approaching critical thresholds. Forecasts can be used by policy makers as well as by land users to define more sustainable ways of using dry areas around the world.

The research is carried out in six Mediterranean areas, ranging from Portugal to Cyprus.

LEDDRA proposes a holistic assessment of the fit of responses adopted to combat soil and ecosystem degradation and desertification (LEDD). LEDDRA embraces the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) paradigm and employs the internationally recognized ecosystem approach as appropriate for the holistic study of human-environment interactions. Recognizing, therefore, that humanity is an integral part of the ecosystems and assuming their mutual dependence, the criterion used by LEDDRA to evaluate the anthropic responses to LEDD is to verify whether the responses protect and preserve the socio-ecological resilience of the analyzed ecosystem.

The DESIRE project, involving 28 partners worldwide, has developed a useful approach to defining promising Sustainable Land Management (SLM) strategies to counteract desertification processes in arid areas.  SLM is a strategy aimed at improving or stabilizing agricultural productivity, improving people's living conditions and improving ecosystems. SLM strategies therefore seek to combine and optimize the ecological, technical, institutional, socio-cultural, economic and scientific aspects related to soil management in response to desertification.

The Eureka project is aimed at the systematization of the scientific and operational results achieved in the ARCHIMED area that are related to the sustainable management of the territory and the protection of natural resources. The HARMONIZED INFORMATION SYSTEM, the main result of the project, is a web-based tool conceived as a digital archive where all the products produced in the Mediterranean countries can be brought together in a reasoned manner.

The collective project PROTECTION AND VALORISATION OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL CAPITAL - TUVANAC, uses a multi-stakeholder strategy, implemented through the establishment of a multi-stakeholder lab (MSL). The objective is to provide farms, companies, institutional organizations and not-for- profit organizations, and all stakeholders, with a platform for permanent dialogue to identify the most effective strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation.