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Project Topic
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The overall objective of SWRIPS project is to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the water usage in the agri-food supply chain (SC) in the EU-Med area under a circular economy approach aimed to saving water and minimize the external use of resources, avoiding further contamination of land and water. SWRIPS addresses the thematic “Water Management - Prevent and reduce land and water salinization and pollution due to agri-food activities”. It aims to recover the wastewater produced in the agri-food processing and to reuse the purified water for fertigation purpose while at the same time recovering the substances produced in the process as a matrix for fertilizer, thus putting in place a virtuous cycle that reduces the overall consumption of freshwater, guarantees water availability to farmers, reduce soil drying out and the overall amount of additional fertilizers, is cost effective both for agri-food industries and farmers and, finally, is environmental and human-health friendly. SWRIPS will achieve it by implementing a circular economy and management system based on a Life Cycle Assessment: the environmental impact would be considered along the entire production chain, from the cultivation to the food processing and end-of-life water cycle. SWRIPS aims to demonstrate the possibility to -reduce the problem of scarcity of freshwater and of excessive salinization of the soil and contamination of aquifers, particularly critical in the Mediterranean areas, through the recovery of agri-food industry wastewater for fertigation; -reduce the need of external fertilizers and therefore the presence of nitrates, phosphates, sulphates etc. through the re-use of water and excess sludge produced in the purification process; - provide, thanks to an innovative integrated monitoring system, a continuous control of the quality of purified water, also guaranteeing the possibility of early warning in case of excessive pollutant levels (organic components, pesticides, metals) in any of the purification phases - control, through microbiology and chemical-physical analyses, all the relevant water, soil and crop parameters involved in the process to define fertiliser application better tailored to crop needs, soil conditions, and the agroecosystem's nitrogen cycle. - develop a flexible and cost-effective system that allows an optimized use based on crop seasonality and characteristics of the water to be treated, typical of the agri-food industry under study. SWRIPS identifies 3 fundamental innovative technical elements: -an innovative multi-stage purification system based on aerobic granular biomass and nanocomposite and photocatalyst based filters to remove pollutants; -an integrated test system for continuous monitoring of the physical and microbio-chemical parameters of the purified water, consisting of a compact solid-state UV spectroscopy apparatus and visible sensing system for early warning; -the usage of innovative deep-learning algorithms to optimize the whole water/crop cycle and reduce water footprint and environmental impact on water basins, soil and crop itself. SWRIPS will test the system in three sites and different agri-food SCs: citrus in Sicily, tomato canning in Tunisia and oil industry in Algeria. SWRIPS foresees a very strong consortium combining expertise in the development and set-up of innovative wastewater treatment and sensors with those of control software development and advanced optimization algorithms. SWRIPS partners have documented experience in quality water and fertilization crop control. These experiences are complemented by the technical-engineering ones on water distribution. An added value for SWRIPS is the presence of the end-users of the process: agricultural consortia and agri-food industries. This will allow not only to test the system in the laboratory and through software models but also to test its functionality in the field, in different operating and environmental conditions
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