HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-01-two-stage Living labs for co-creating solutions for the restoration of ecosystems

TWIN SPRINGS – Rediscovering and Restoring Lost Freshwater Ecosystems in Urban Landscapes

Küçükçekmece district holds an extraordinary but hidden reality:
According to the national water authority (DSİ), nearly 1,000 freshwater wells exist beneath the urban fabric—yet the majority of them cannot be physically located today.

Due to rapid urbanisation, high-density construction, parcel mergers and unrecorded structural changes, many wells have become:

• buried under new buildings,

• sealed during construction,

• lost within private parcels,

• or ecologically disconnected from their original hydrological function.

Although municipalities possess legal authority to monitor, regulate and generate revenue from these freshwater assets, the absence of spatial visibility and ecological monitoring has created a major governance and sustainability gap.

TWIN SPRINGS addresses exactly this problem.

Under the topic HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-BIODIV-01-two-stage: Living Labs for Ecosystem Restoration, the project proposes EU–Türkiye Twin Living Labs to rediscover, assess, restore and digitally map freshwater springs, wells and micro-wetlands in dense urban settings.

What the Living Labs will do

Using Küçükçekmece’s “lost freshwater system” as a real-world experimental zone, the Living Labs will:

• Identify and digitally map lost wells using AI-based satellite imagery, ground-penetrating sensors, GIS and municipal archives.

• Restore accessible springs through nature-based solutions (phytoremediation, buffer strips, micro-wetland rehabilitation).

• Develop a new governance model transforming forgotten wells into ecological assets.

• Pilot AI–IoT water quality monitoring stations to track pollution, flow and biodiversity.

• Co-create solutions with local communities, SMEs, youth groups and researchers using a multi-actor approach.

• Produce scalable methods applicable to other European cities facing similar “hidden freshwater loss” due to urbanisation.

Why this matters

Across Europe, thousands of small springs, wells and groundwater access points have been lost due to urban development. These ecosystems, although small, are critical for:

• urban climate resilience,

• groundwater recharge,

• biodiversity corridors,

• nature-based cooling,

• and local ecosystem services.

TWIN SPRINGS will demonstrate how forgotten freshwater sources can be restored, monitored and reintegrated into the urban ecosystem—turning “invisible water assets” into visible and functioning nature-based infrastructure.

Vision

To create a replicable European model that helps cities rediscover, restore and reconnect with their hidden freshwater ecosystems—merging nature-based solutions, digital innovation and community-driven planning