The 2025 edition of the AquaConsoil – the leading European conference on contaminated soil and water management – was an excellent opportunity to present PHISHES and collect feedback from leading scientists in this field.
On behalf of the PHISHES consortium, Nicolas DEVAU (BRGM) presented the project at AquaConsoil, during an interactive session which brought together four other Mission Soil sister projects: EDAPHOS (coordinated by the University of Franche-Comté, France); ISLANDR (coordinated by GTK, Finland); SOILPROM (coordnated by the University of Wageningen, Netherlands); and SOILWISE coordinated by ILVO, Belgium. The session was structured with brief presentations, approximately 10 minutes each, by representatives of each project, followed by an open discussion with the audience focused on contaminated soil data and the predictive modelling of soil health and risks.
The discussion period reflected the high level of interest for these topics but also the challenges that lie ahead in terms of soil data interoperability, access to sensitive soil data, modelling of soil functions or ecosystem services involving complex; e.g. biological, processes, etc. The presentation of the PHISHES project was well received, with particular interest in the PHISHES Digital Platform (PDP) and the model trains that will be applied across the project’s various test cases. It was especially clear from the various presentations that there are strong synergies between the different sister projects, which warrants increased exchange between the research teams.
The PHISHES project was also referenced in some of the oral presentations, highlighting its relevance to the broader themes of the event, and to help increase its visibility.
Although PHISHES only began in September 2024, the AquaConsoil conference was a valuable opportunity for networking with sister projects that have similar or complementary objectives. Another excellent initiative for presenting PHISHES results will be REMTECH Europe, taking place in Ferrara from 15–19 September.
