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Project Topic
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According to reports of the World Water Council 2018 based on global projections, water demand will increase by 50% in many Middle East and North African countries already submitted to high water stress. Currently, underground available water resources are in high demand due to irrigation, urban and industrial needs in relation to demographic increase and imperatives to maintain the regional economic fabric. Added to this is the problem of increasing water scarcity linked to climate change. In line with IWRM approaches TRUST will apply in an integrated way, environmental and economic friendly technical solutions to allow sustainable treatment of wastewater, reuse of water in a relevant allocation strategy (the right water to the right purpose), recovery of useful substances, and savings of energy. Everything following circular economy strategy. TRUST will focus on challenging cases in terms of efficient wastewater treatment of the textile and pharmaceutical industries from Tunisia and Turkey where water scarcity is a major concern and irrigation is a large water-consuming sector. By implementing appropriate advanced treatment to achieve TRL 6-7, TRUST will not only reduce the environmental impact but also save water resources by allowing reuse after pollution control. Indeed, non-conventional water such as wastewater is currently only partially reused in these regions (about 20%) but appropriate treatment would generate a new source of clean water to be used and an opportunity to enhance water security. The impact on groundwater resources of the mitigation measure of water reuse will be modelled at the specific case study’s local/regional scale by comparing scenarios including potential climate change in the medium and long term. TRUST’s water reuse strategy will also contribute reducing business instability by developing the market. In this perspective new business models will be developed according to site specific socio-economic and legal constraints and the economic assessment of the different water allocation ways will be performed. Targeting an integrated management of wastewater reuse, TRUST follows a participatory approach where relevant local and regional stakeholders (technology providers, water utilities, industrials and other end users, public authorities in water exploitation and management, etc…) are involved from the beginning of the project. This will ensure a proper understanding of the current perception of risks from applying TRUST’s proposition of novel wastewater treatment systems, and of the complexities in both the socio-economic and environmental systems. This will also enable, enhancing trust to the proposed strategy, implementing an adaptive management framework for properly addressing climate and market changes in the reuse strategy and business models, and increase societal and institutional capacity to effectively introduce water reuse. TRUST’s consortium will be made up of wastewater treatment and recovery/savings developers, experts in economic and environmental assessment, business models, hydrology models, and in participatory approach. Industrial associated partners will be joined in a participatory approach by local and regional actors from different sectors, such as urban and regional authorities in the water sector. The consortium gathers partners from EU countries (Italy, France, and Spain), and non-EU countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey) working in complementarity and in synergy ensuring to deliver solutions contributing to the objectives of IWRM in water scarce Mediterranean regions.
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