OBEREK (RURBANIVE)
Open Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration through Environment Monitoring and Knowledge Integration (OBEREK)
OBEREK is a project funded under the RURBANIVE Open Call, aiming to develop a powerful, real-time digital solution to monitor and support biodiversity restoration efforts in the protected Albufera de València lagoon in Spain. For this project, we are teaming up with Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the local end-user organization Fundació Assut (ASSUT).
Use case and motivation
The motivation for OBEREK stems from the catastrophic November 2024 floods, which severely damaged the vital Albufera de València coastal lagoon and wetland by introducing toxic pollutants and causing significant biodiversity loss. The restoration requires a sophisticated, integrated system that could synthesize real-time data from various siloed sources – including IoT sensors, remote sensing, and existing municipal data – to provide a holistic overview of the ecosystem's health.
Crucially, this system needs to build social trust by offering open and explainable access to the data for all citizens and policymakers. By establishing clear feedback mechanisms, the project aims to strengthen vital rural-urban synergies, enabling local farmers and community associations to participate actively in the restoration process. OBEREK directly addresses these needs by providing a deep-tech solution to accelerate recovery and enhance the region's resilience against future climate events.
Albufera de València. Photo credit: Fundació Assut
Objectives and results
The OBEREK project will deliver a fully validated digital rural-urban enabler (RUE) by focusing on four key objectives. First, we will establish a continuous real-time monitoring system for key ecological indicators (KEIs) in the Albufera. This will be accomplished by implementing advanced stream reasoning pipelines using NeverBlink’s neurosymbolic platform, providing the local community with instant, actionable status updates on the ecosystem's health.
Second, to ensure transparency and open access, a publicly accessible, easy-to-use web dashboard will be deployed, giving all stakeholders clear visibility into the restoration efforts. Simultaneously, an open API, following FAIR principles, will be implemented, empowering the scientific community and downstream developers with machine-readable access to all collected and inferred data.
Third, we will establish rural-urban synergy by embedding inclusive mechanisms (like polls and community outreach) into the RUE, which will ensure the public can actively participate and that the system is co-created with the community for continuous benefit.
Finally, to guarantee pan-European transferability, the OBEREK RUE will be extensively validated up to TRL 8 (system complete and qualified) and published in the RURBANIVE Community Store. This publication will make the solution, its open-source code, and its validated business model readily available for use in other EU regions facing similar biodiversity restoration challenges.
Consortium
As NeverBlink, we are at the forefront of the OBEREK project as the Coordinator, leading a consortium that included the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the local end-user organization Fundació Assut (ASSUT).
Funding
This project has indirectly received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under project RURBANIVE (Grant Agreement number: 101136597). Total project budget: €100,000.00.
OBEREK's deliverables and public materials reflect only views of the OBEREK consortium. The European Commission or the RURBANIVE project are not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
