Thematic Group on Improving Water Resilience in Rural Areas through the CAP
This Thematic Group (TG) provided the opportunity to examine how to best utilise the CAP’s potential for improving water resilience in rural areas and promote more systemic transformative changes in the way water and land are managed to enable rural areas to withstand climate extremes better.
The availability of clean, reliable water resources is key for our livelihoods, for human health and wellbeing, food security, and environmental sustainability. Yet, in the light of a changing climate, water is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. Taking action to improve water resilience to secure its ongoing availability is therefore paramount, for example through reducing water demand and increasing the efficiency of water use through e.g. changing to less water-intensive crops, increasing water re-use and investing in nature-based solution to improve infiltration and water retention.
The overall aim of the TG was to examine how to best utilise the Common Agricultural Policy’s (CAP) potential for improving water resilience in rural areas and promote more systemic transformative changes in the way water and land are managed, enabling rural areas to better withstand climate extremes. It looked at how this can be best supported through the CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs), which stakeholders need to be involved and how different interventions and instruments can work together.
The background briefing, providing some facts and figures about water resilience in rural areas, existing barriers and the types of practices and CAP tools to improve this, as well as the list of TG members are available in the Resources section below.
Objectives
The objectives of the TG were to:
- Identify the most beneficial actions and approaches to improve water resilience and explore the range of CAP interventions that could be used, as well as possibilities for upscaling and incentivising uptake through improved CAP scheme design and implementation.
- Examine the role of the supporting environment (e.g. knowledge sharing, promotion of innovative solutions and advisory services) and how this can best be deployed to improve the uptake of relevant CAP actions to achieve greater water resilience.
- Identify and share best practice examples and case studies of improved water resilience in rural areas that can be shared and potentially replicated by Member States.
Activities
The first TG meeting (online, 18 September 2025) focused on sharing positive examples for improving water resilience in rural areas in a sustainable way, while in the second TG meeting (Brussels, 06 November 2025) TG members reflected on the factors that need to be in place to scale up more joined up, collaborative, landscape scale and longer-term approaches.
In-between the two TG meetings, two informal online discussions focused respectively on more effective ways of knowledge sharing and capacity building, and on enabling more cooperation and landscape scale approaches and using a better mix of CAP interventions.
Key findings
To stimulate greater action on water resilience, TG members developed recommendations on more holistic landscape scale approaches, knowledge sharing as well as water governance and financing opportunities. Key factors that would support the upscaling of action for water resilience in rural areas include:
- Integration of CAP measures, stakeholders (farmers, other water users, authorities) and approaches (at catchment level).
- Knowledge – Education and training of all actors, especially farmers and advisors, for a holistic approach to transition.
- Ambition and regulations – Ensuring stability, a strong baseline (keep conditionality) and a long-term vision.
- Collective action and engagement at all levels, from national to EU.
- Incentives beyond compensating the costs of changes in practices that set direction and offer long-term perspectives for agricultural businesses and agri-food systems, exploring also options available under sectoral interventions.
To give a flavour of the range of initiatives that are happening in different parts of the EU and to provide inspiration to others, the TG collected examples of projects and initiatives that address water resilience in different ways by: (i) working at the catchment level / following a landscape scale approach, (ii) improving water governance and working in a collaborative way involving different stakeholders, (iii) applying technical solutions and (iv) providing support through enhanced advice and knowledge sharing. These initiatives are funded from a range of sources, including the CAP, but also other EU funds (e.g. Communities4Climate, LIFE, Horizon Europe) as well as funding sources such as foundations and national funding. In the same briefing, a range of different CSP interventions designed and implemented in Member States (MSs) is included. The briefing will be published soon.
Scroll down this page to find all the outputs of this Thematic Group and relevant resources related to this topic.
Learn more
You can find other useful resources about this theme in our Publications section and in our Good Practice database.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at implementation@eucapnetwork.eu.
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Resources
Documents
Links
- Thematic Group on Landscape Features and Biodiversity
- Thematic Group on the Design and Implementation of Eco-schemes in the new CAP S…
- Thematic Group on Green Architecture: Designing Green Strategies
- Thematic Group on Enhancing Biodiversity on Farmland for Improved Resilience
- Thematic Group on Economic Vulnerability of Farming
- European CAP Network’s Steering Group
- Subgroup on CAP Strategic Plans
- European CAP Network’s Assembly
