Publications

This study examines participatory water governance through co-design processes, in the form of “Living Labs”, implemented at the Malia and Agia sites in Crete, Greece, as part of two PRIMA projects. Living Labs involved key stakeholders in addressing water management challenges related to tourism and agriculture at these Cretan sites. Participants participated in dynamic sessions mediated by digital tools such as Mentimeter and spatial mapping activities.

In this perspective paper, we explore the co-creation of water knowledge (CCWK) concept to value multiple and diverse forms of knowledge. We identify four overarching principles (inclusivity, openness, legitimacy, and actionability), highlighting the importance of establishing relationships and collaborative leadership, adopting key tools and techniques, and integrating knowledge for water resources management. Furthermore, we argue that prioritizing epistemic justice is essential for effective CCWK. To address these, we advocate for more interdisciplinary and reflexive research practices that challenge and disrupt Western scientific traditions shaped by functionalist and colonial legacies.

This study applies the Water Balance Approach (WBA), originally developed for the Kansas High Plains Aquifer, to evaluate pumping reduction strategies in a data-sparse Mediterranean aquifer. Using 14 years (2010–2023) of water-level records from 35 monitoring points and indirect estimates of annual groundwater use, we establish a linear relationship between average annual water-level change and total pumping. This relationship is used to quantify pumping volumes required for stable water levels and to assess the impact of different management targets.

In this perspective paper, we explore the co-creation of water knowledge (CCWK)concept to value multiple and diverse forms of knowledge. We identify four overarchingprinciples (inclusivity, openness, legitimacy, and actionability), highlighting the importance ofestablishing relationships and collaborative leadership, adopting key tools and techniques,and integrating knowledge for water resources management. Furthermore, we argue thatprioritizing epistemic justice is essential for effective CCWK. 

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) aim to address natural and anthropogenic risks, enhancing ecosystem-based approaches, biodiversity, human health, and socio-economic growth. Despite the growing interest in NbS applications, their integration into landscape planning at the catchment scale remains limited, given the multi-disciplinary comprehensive features related to them. 

This paper extends our previous work on spreadsheet-based steady-state groundwater flow modeling to include transient conditions. Using a step-by-step Excel implementation, a numerical solution for transient groundwater flow in a confined aquifer is presented, highlighting the spreadsheet’s educational value in understanding complex groundwater flow phenomena. Implementing transient flow in an easy-to-visualize and interactive way in Excel was not trivial and required the use of macros created with Visual Basic for Applications. Although the actions of the macros were simple to describe, their implementation was challenging. For this reason, we used ChatGPT as a coding companion, which provided the code after being provided with carefully designed prompts