In June 2026, the Israeli partners of the NPP-SOL project took part in the Riverine–Agriculture Best Management Practices Workshop, co-organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and AGMA – Israel Center for Watersheds and Rivers. The invite-only event gathered 60 registered participants.
This workshop brought together key regional stakeholders—including local farmers, river basin authority leaders, hydrologists, soil conservation specialists, and environmental policy experts—to develop collaborative strategies for managing the river-agriculture interface. With opening remarks delivered by Dr. Nitzan Swett (Soil Erosion Research Station, SERS) and concluding reflections led by Ms. Yael Salame (AGMA), the sessions featured contributions from prominent field experts and presenters, including Alon Maor (Head of the Soil Conservation Department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security), Shai Gilad (AGMA), Smadar Tanner (Model Farm), Orah Rain (SERS), Prof. Roy Posmanik (Technion), and Dr. Oded Cohen (Shamir Research Institute).
Participants (representing different stakeholders) then sat at roundtables and discussed specific case studies, including how to mitigate non-point source pollutants such as agricultural runoff, agrochemicals, excess nutrients, and sediment discharge from intensively cultivated Mediterranean fields into local riverine ecosystems. Key topics outlined in the program included the establishment of on-farm-scale treatment facilities such as constructed wetlands, biogas plants and bioreactors; vegetative buffer zones using cover crops and native perennials; river channel widening; the removal of hydraulic barriers to restore natural hydrological flows; runoff retention traps; drainage road culverts; and on-farm soil conservation practices such as conservation tillage and crop rotation.
Participants were very satisfied with the workshop: focusing on farmers was the right decision; the complexity of integrated watershed management, i.e., agricultural watersheds, was clearly demonstrated; farmers and planners were especially happy to be exposed to plausible combinations of existing technologies at the farm scale to resolve environmental problems.
NPP-SOL is part of the PRIMA Programme supported by the European Union.
