SPRINGS project

State of Global Water Resources 2024

🌍 2024 was the hottest year on record (1.55 °C above pre-industrial levels), with #floods and #droughts affecting 60% of rivers and glaciers melting worldwide. The #WMO calls for stronger global #water monitoring and data sharing to tackle these challenges.

🔗https://bit.ly/3JoQlmg

🎭 SPRINGS on Stage: At Naples’ Galleria Toledo, after the play “C’era una volta un fiume,” citizens joined an open discussion led by Vincenzo Mignano, Alina Narciso, and Bruno Miccio on sustainable water management and how SPRINGS supports safer, resilient water systems.

💧 How does water connect to our health — and how can research guide policy?

Join SPRINGS experts @vcharris.bsky.social & Andres Madriz Montero at the webinar “Linking Water and Health in European Research” (6 Nov, 15:00–16:45 CET) with other EU projects.

bit.ly/47kevGq

Really nice to see more daily rain gauge data from ECA&D (www.ecad.eu/dailydata/pr...). This wll benefit projects such as @springsproject.bsky.social

💧 Water connects us all — sustaining our communities, ecosystems, and health.

Join us with other EU-funded projects for the webinar “Linking Water and Health in European Research

📅 6 Nov, 15:00–16:45 CET
👉 bit.ly/4h9ZXxT

🌍 3.6B people face climate hazards like floods, droughts & heat stress. Even with lower emissions, extreme events will persist. 💧 SPRINGS studies how climate-driven water shifts spread disease, working with communities to build #adaptation that protects #health.

Read the article: bit.ly/3KqAiVu

🌍 Today is #WorldEnvironmentalHealthDay: Clean Air, Healthy People. Air pollution threatens #PublicHealth, and #ClimateChange is amplifying its impacts. 💧 At #SPRINGS, we explore another side: how climate-driven shifts in water systems spread pathogens. #ClimateAction is health action.

Cholera kills more people for second consecutive year, while prevention and treatment available The global cholera statistics for 2024, shows an increase in both the number of people who fell sick and died from the disease. Reported cholera cases rose by 5% and deaths by 50% in 2024 compared to ...

🚨 Cholera deaths rose by 50% in 2024, with over 6,000 lives lost to a preventable disease. Gaps in water, sanitation, and hygiene, worsened by climate change, are fuelling the crisis.

📖 @who.int report: www.who.int/news/item/12...

💧 #MeetOurPeople: Shreedhar Maskey (IHE Delft) shares how SPRINGS connects #hydrology with health, studying how climate change, #floods, and #droughts affect water resources and people’s wellbeing.

▶️ Discover IHE Delft's role in building cross-disciplinary insights.

#ClimateHealth

🌍 At the 21st Conference on Complex Systems, Charles Dupont (SPRINGS PhD, @aighd.org) presented his work on modelling decision-making under uncertainty. His research supports SPRINGS’ agent-based modelling, showing how communities respond to climate-driven health challenges.

#ClimateHealth

💧 In this #MeetOurPeople episode, @liviu-chelcea.bsky.social, social anthropologist at the University of Bucharest, shares how SPRINGS studies water, sanitation & land use in Romania to understand how #ClimateChange shapes waterborne pathogen risks. ▶️

#SPRINGSproject #ClimateHealth #PublicHealth

WHO publishes 54 pathogen background documents to support safe water and sanitation systems WHO has released 54 WASH-related pathogens new technical background documents that capture the latest science on pathogens linked to drinking-water and sanitation systems.

🚰 Unsafe water and poor sanitation cause 1.4M+ preventable deaths yearly.
@who.int has released background documents on 54 WASH-related pathogens, key for managing #WaterborneDisease risks.

📖 Explore: bit.ly/47TPns7

#WASH #ClimateHealth #PublicHealth #ClimateChange

Exposure of European ecosystems to drought This interactive map shows the land areas currently exposed to drought across the EEA's 38 member and cooperating countries. To assess the exposure to droughts across Europe, the European Environment ...

Droughts are hitting Europe’s communities, ecosystems & water supplies, posing growing health & economic risks. 🌿💧

Explore this interactive EEA map to see which areas are most exposed:

🛰 bit.ly/3Hck0Or
#Drought #ClimateResilience #SPRINGSproject

🌍 Today is #EarthOvershootDay. In just 7 months, we’ve used up Earth’s yearly ecological budget. For the rest of 2025, we’re in environmental debt.

At SPRINGS, we study how ecological decline affects health, because this crisis isn’t just about the planet; it’s also about people. #MoveTheDate

SPRINGS Project is working with ABC Napoli to strengthen Naples’ water system against climate risks. This collaboration brings science-based tools into real-world operations, offering lessons for cities across Europe.

🔗 Read more: bit.ly/3II2D8B

#ClimateResilience #WaterSafety

Climate resilience must be fair to everyone🤝

Today is the EU Day for Victims of the Global Climate Crisis, & we would like to share Europe's latest climate adaptation report, which emphasises that fairness & justice are fundamental for building climate resilience:
www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/...

🌊 How do rainfall & climate change shape floods? SPRINGS PhD researcher Mutaz Abdelaziz (@IHE Delft) is modelling flood hotspots under future scenarios, based on field data from Ghana. His work also supports research on flood-driven risks of pathogen transmission. 📖 bit.ly/44O2HLt #FloodModelling

🦠💧 SPRINGS PhD Aude Lemme (VU Amsterdam) is modelling how #pathogens move through rivers.

Fieldwork in #Ghana, one of SPRINGS' case studies, grounded her work in local realities, supporting efforts to understand and reduce #WaterborneRisks.

Read more about her work: bit.ly/4nHjybp

#ClimateHealth

🔍💧 SPRINGS PhD researcher Patience Sihwa from @rivm-nl.bsky.social, visited Akuse, Ghana, to assess water risks shaped by climate and sanitation. Using a Water Safety Planning approach, her work supports safer, more resilient drinking water systems.

📖 Read more: bit.ly/4liiXeV

🎓 As part of her PhD in SPRINGS, Frederike Kooiman travelled to Ghana to help adapt diarrhoeal surveillance tools to local realities and improve data collection.

💧🌍 Read her interview to learn more about her research and role in SPRINGS: bit.ly/3TCCpa5

YouTube video by SPRINGSproject SPRINGS in Akuse, Ghana

💧 In Akuse, Ghana, SPRINGS explores how climate extremes affect water access and child health. Watch our video on the Ghana case study and learn more about our work in the field. #ClimateHealth #SPRINGSproject

youtu.be/UyJ9ZJa1XxI

💧 Last week, Lucie Vermeulen shared SPRINGS research at #WaterMicro2025, presenting work with RIVM on Water Safety Planning and QMRA across our four case study sites: Ghana, Tanzania, Romania, and Italy — a great chance to learn and exchange with others in the field.

In the June issue of our newsletter, you will meet:

💦Our Executive Director @ylaleena.bsky.social offering her perspective on how to ensure continued access to clean water in sufficient amounts.

🔊Our EEA noise expert on how harmful noise is to our health and the environment.

🧵Link in thread below

🏜️ Today is #DesertificationAndDroughtDay
40% of land is degraded, worsening #drought and health risks. In the #SPRINGSproject, we explore how climate hazards affect water and health, and how local resilience can break the cycle. 🌱 Restoring land protects people and the planet.
#PlanetaryHealth

Early June, SPRINGS joined #PlanetaryHealthCluster partners in Brussels to strengthen collaboration. At a high-level EU Parliament event, our coordinator @vcharris.bsky.social highlighted the need to advance our understanding of the links between #climate and #health.

🌍 On World Environment Day, let’s stop and listen.

Plastic pollution harms ecosystems and threatens human health.

Tackling plastic is key to protecting people and the planet.

It’s time to #BeatPlasticPollution.

Meet the @rivm-nl.bsky.social team 👋

They’re working closely with local partners in case study sites:
💧 Support the implementation of climate-resilient water safety plans
🔬 Carry out quantitative microbial risk assessments.

🎥 Watch to learn how RIVM is contributing to the #SPRINGSproject

🌍 #SPRINGSproject at #MeAVeAS2025

In Pisa, SPRINGS shared insights from our Italy 🇮🇹 case study, showcasing surveillance data and water safety strategies to tackle climate-linked diarrhoeal disease. A great space to connect veterinary, public health & environmental science.

#ClimateHealth

🎨 What’s your water story? In Akuse, Ghana, students explored water, climate & health through art. Led by anthropologist Emily Ragus, their story-quilt revealed joy, fear & resilience. 🖌️

🔗 bit.ly/3F2ZaA9

#ClimateHealth #ArtsBasedResearch #SPRINGSproject

How climate change could be increasing your chance of catching a virus from sewage – new study With more extreme weather events comes the possibility of more harm from sewage-associated viruses.

🌊 After storms, what lingers in the water? A new article from @BlueAdaptEU explores how extreme weather can help viruses persist in sewage, increasing exposure risks. Highlights the need to rethink how we manage water safety in a changing climate.

📖 bit.ly/42UqqtE

#ClimateHealth #SewagePollution