The SentinelSprings project officially launched on April 1st, 2025, in Lisbon with its inaugural kick-off meeting. Hosted by the project coordinator, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST-ID), the event gathered the full consortium of partners from Denmark, France, Italy, Malta, and Poland to collaboratively plan the project’s journey. SentinelSprings aims to position springs as vital “sentinels” for monitoring climate change and the health of our aquatic ecosystems. To ground these objectives in a tangible, historical context, the meeting included a guided visit to Lisbon’s iconic 18th-century ‘Aqueduto das Águas Livres’. This impressive structure was specifically engineered to capture and transport water from the Águas Livres spring system to the city (see photos). The visit was a real-world example of the project’s core scope, vividly illustrating how springs provide essential ecosystem services, such as being a water source for human communities and holding significant cultural importance. It underscored the critical need for the project’s mission: to develop sustainable management and protection strategies for these essential, yet vulnerable, natural resources. Back in the meeting room, the partners finalized the strategic work plan, defined clear roles, and established a collaborative framework for developing the project’s novel monitoring platforms and modelling tools over the next three years.
