The Mediterranean library of knowledge
Explore the ENI CBC Med Programme's library of deliverables: a comprehensive digital repository of diverse resources tailored for the Mediterranean region. Discover in-depth studies, innovative strategies, and practical tools spanning tools addressing key environmental, economic, and social issues. The library is your go-to source to find valuable knowledge to inspire new collaborative projects driving fair, sustainable and inclusive development across the Mediterranean.
AQUACYCLE My Autobiography - Part 2 Exceeding on expectations
The manuscript “AQUACYCLE My Autobiography” brings an account of the project’s journey through the ‘eyes’ of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system.
It is foremost intended to share the project’s aims and objectives and the progress towards achieving these objectives in an easy-to-understand manner. It is hoped that readers, including society at large will thus gain access into the functioning and purpose of the components that make up the treatment system: an anaerobic digester, one or more constructed wetlands and a solar raceway pond reactor.
Along the project’s journey, AQUACYCLE meets up not only with his ‘creators’, i.e. the research teams in the ENI CBC Med funded project but also with water stakeholders, including farmers from around the Mediterranean Region who are alerting to the dire water situation they are facing and how junior high school students amaze their teachers with their intimate knowledge also of EU regulations concerning treated wastewater reuse and more.
This second tome, published in October 2023 brings the sequel to My Autobiography: Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance, published in February 2022. The latter collects the chapters prior to the construction of a first pilot demonstration unit of the treatment system in Spain, hence the title ‘Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance’.
In this sequel, the reader is informed how the project reached all of its originally foreseen objectives ... and much more ! ... hence the title ‘Exceeding on expectations’.
AQUACYCLE My Autobiography - Part 1 Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance
The manuscript “AQUACYCLE My Autobiography” brings an account of the project’s journey through the ‘eyes’ of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system.
It is foremost intended to share the project’s aims and objectives and the progress towards achieving these objectives in an easy-to-understand manner. It is hoped that readers, including society at large will thus gain access into the functioning and purpose of the components that make up the treatment system: an anaerobic digester, one or more constructed wetlands and a solar raceway pond reactor.
Along the project’s journey, AQUACYCLE meets up not only with his ‘creators’, i.e. the research teams in the ENI CBC Med funded project but also with water stakeholders, including farmers from around the Mediterranean Region who are alerting to the dire water situation they are facing.
This first tome, published in February 2022 collects the chapters prior to the construction of a first pilot demonstration unit of the treatment system in Spain, hence the title ‘Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance’.
AQUACYCLE Capitalization Plan
The AQUACYCLE Capitalization Plan takes stock of the ENI CBC Med funded project’s achievements from two complementary perspectives.
The first chapter collects the Project Legacies – which have been aggregated under no less than 10 different headers – together with the targeted recipients and informs on how public access to these legacies will be ensured beyond the project lifetime. Consequently, further details are presented on each of these respective project legacies.
The second chapter informs about the project’s Capacity Building Achievements, the recipients and the quantified targets reached in terms of the number of Certified APOC users, i.e. the number of persons who received training of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, abbreviated to APOC system; the number of tertiary degree awards to women in Tunisia for their research related to the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, and a multitude of women researchers who have been highly instrumental in the successful outcomes of the project’s research activities and for making the outcomes accessible to a wider public, including society at large.
The final, third chapter reiterates on the Project Key Performance Indicators, which sustains the subtitle of the second volume of AQUACYCLE My Autobiography: Exceeding on Expectations.
AQUACYCLE In-depth analysis of local water and sanitation governance framework
The present document brings the analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the local Governance Framework in the three countries where pilot demonstration units of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system have been constructed, i.e. Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia.
The first chapter places the scope of the present SWOT analysis in the context of the overall aim and the specific objectives of ‘Preparing for participatory decision-making’.
Chapter 2 elaborates briefly on the rationale for the SWOT analysis to be based on a desk review of available reports and assessment studies and interviews with representatives of the public authorities involved at the national, regional and local level. This is followed by a detailed description of the roles and involvement of the main stakeholders’ groups in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 brings an overview of the regulatory framework for sanitation, wastewater treatment and reuse in agriculture in the respective countries. Chapter 5 informs on the semi-structured questionnaire that was elaborated for the purpose of interviewing the main stakeholders in each country and reports on the outcomes of the 15 stakeholder interviews that were conducted.
Chapter 6 presents the outcomes of the SWOT analysis of the eco-innovative wastewater treatment technology brought by AQUACYCLE, (for technical details on the technology see Output APOC technical guide). In turn, these outcomes provided a solid basis for the elaboration in Chapter 7 of forward looking strategies for the Mediterranean Region as a whole and for the targeted case study countries in particular. Finally, overall conclusions and recommendations are provided in Chapter 8.
AQUACYCLE Technical guide on project's eco-innovative wastewater treatment system
This technical guide has been designed to provide guidance to staff of public and private entities needing info on the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system (abbreviated to APOC system) design, operation and maintenance.
The acronym APOC stands for “Anaerobic digestion”, “Photocatalytic Oxidation” and “Constructed wetland”, the three components of the eco-innovative wastewater treatment system promoted by the AQUACYCLE project. Anaerobic treatment and constructed wetlands are two mature and commercialized technologies with wide applications in the wastewater treatment market, that are combined with a novel solar disinfection/photocatalytic oxidation process towards the treatment of municipal wastewater at a level that satisfies the most stringent standards for reuse. The distinctive features of APOC technology make it eco-friendly, efficient and cost-effective as it is based on natural systems, it uses less chemicals, runs on renewable energy (solar irradiation), produces biogas, fertiliser and a clean water for reuse in agriculture, in domestic, industrial or other applications, and the constructed wetland thrives as a habitant, an ecological tourist attraction aside from being a climate change mitigation measure.
This guide has been prepared by a cross-border multidisciplinary scientific interaction. Specifically, AQUACYCLE partners which hold expertise in the three different components of the APOC system have provided the necessary technical information and data sheets for the scope of this manual.
AQUACYCLE Pilot Demonstration Units of an Eco-Innovative Wastewater Treatment System
Three pilot demonstration units of AQUACYCLE’s low-cost, eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, abbreviated to APOC system, have been constructed at the following locations: 1) a site owned by the real estate company SANABEL in Deddeh, south of Tripoli in North Lebanon; (2) at the existing anaerobic wastewater treatment facility of Blanca in the Murcia Region of Spain; and (3) at the existing wastewater treatment facility of Bent Saidane in the Zaghouan Governorate of Tunisia. The three sites have in common that they represent small to medium sized communities whose livelihoods depend primarily on agriculture.
The present Output explains the entire construction process from contract award to commissioning, including plant performance. The details of the construction are presented to provide the next developers of other APOC facilities with a visual guide to help them replicate the APOC eco-innovative system for municipal wastewater treatment and reuse in small to medium-size communities.
This activity has been split into three parts, one for each demo site, as there are differences between the designs. It will enrich knowledge even more as it can help to compare the different variants of APOC systems.
AQUACYCLE Local communities take an active part in the drawing up of actions plans for the reuse of treated wastewater
how the bottom-up inputs towards the drawing up of action plans for the reuse of treated domestic effluent was achieved through the successful organization of the second series of stakeholder workshops in Lebanon and Tunisia.
The first chapter reiterates on the scope of the Participatory GIS (PGIS) in AQUACYCLE, the motivation for targeting local communities around the pilot demonstration sites of the project’s eco-innovative domestic wastewater treatment system (APOC) and the logistics that were put in place ahead of the workshops. The second chapter informs on how the PGIS practice was introduced to the participants and its outcomes in both Lebanon and Tunisia. An appraisal on the PGIS practice sessions is provided both on the part of the organizers and on the part of the participants who joined in the event in the third chapter. Concluding remarks and a look ahead at the next steps make up the final, fourth chapter.
For the reasons explained in this report, the venue of the workshop in Spain was moved to a farmer community outside the Murcia Region. In lieu of the PGIS practice session, the participants in Spain were shown the actual reuse action plans in the Murcia Region where the reuse of treated effluent continues to be among the highest in Europe.
AQUACYCLE Local action and Investment plans
The Local Action and Investment Plans report informs about the aims and outcomes of the third and final series of stakeholder workshops which was joined mainly by representatives at the local decision-making level, i.e. councillors of municipalities and representatives of Unions of Municipalities in Lebanon, and by policy- and decision-makers at the national level in Tunisia. Organized as a webinar in Spain, the event was joined mainly by wastewater treatment plant operators and technicians, as well as by entities involved in the planning and design of wastewater treatment projects, and research entities on wastewater treatment systems.
While the first chapter reiterates on the aims and scope of the events, the second chapter informs about the preparatory activity of drawing up actions plans with a target of reusing 300.000 cubic meters of treated wastewater per annum. The third chapter informs, briefly, about the presentations that were made at the respective events, while the fourth chapter brings the succinct outcomes from of the discussions and exchange of views that took place. Finally, chapter 5 takes stock of the significant level of attendance and of the wide media coverage that were achieved on the occasion of the third, and final, series of stakeholder workshops.
AQUACYCLE Portfolio of Outreach Activities
The Portfolio of Outreach Activities brings an overview of the different types of stakeholder engagement activities that were organized over the lifetime of the ENI CBC Med funded AQUACYCLE Project.
A preliminary chapter brings a highly condensed summary overview, informing about the respective audiences that were targeted, as well as the key performance indicators and main outcomes achieved.
This is followed by a detailed description of the different types of outreach activities, which have been spread out over 10 individual chapters:
1. First Series of Stakeholder Workshops
2. Second Series of Stakeholder Workshops
3. Third Series of Stakeholder Workshops
4. Interviews with water stakeholders
5. Final Conference
6. Synergies and clustering events with ENI CBC Med funded projects
7. Synergies with other EU funded projects
8. Participation in brokerage and innovation events
9. AQUACYCLE meets up with junior high school students
10. AQUAYCLE in the media
AQUACYCLE Charter on Wastewater Reuse
The goal of the Charter is to promote the sustainable use of non-conventional water resources and to support the transfer and sharing of AQUACYCLE research results at the operational level. In doing so, the Charter aspires to create a shared vision for the establishment of a transboundary Mediterranean Wastewater Community.
Rather than bringing the voices of the research teams who designed, tested, and validated the project’s low-cost, eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, abbreviated to the APOC system in the Charter. The Charter foremost brings the voices of farmers and local communities from the three geographic locations where a pilot demonstration unit of the APOC system has been installed.
To start with, through this Charter, farmers alert to a dire future to sustain their livelihoods in the face of ever dwindling freshwater supplies. Next, local community representatives share their views on the reuse of treated wastewater and their expectations of the APOC system. The research in AQUACYCLE also provided an opportunity to demonstrate that it is entirely possible for local communities to take an active role in the drawing up of action plans for the reuse of treated wastewater. This is followed by the appraisal of farmers and local communities who participated in Participatory GIS (PGIS) Practice sessions that were organized in Lebanon and in Tunisia for this purpose. Further chapters bring the views of policy- and decision-making authorities in the water, agricultural, sanitation and health-related sectors on the functionality of an online Irrigation Support Tool. The latter guides on the generation of optimal action plans for the reuse of treated wastewater, based on economic, environmental and social criteria of the user’s choice. It also proved opportune to dedicate a chapter to the level of satisfaction expressed by farmers around the Mediterranean with the current measures put in place by public authorities to combat land and water degradation. Last but not least, the Charter brings the viewpoints expressed by experts and trend-setters in Spain on the reuse of treated wastewater and on the prospects for the APOC technology to meet the recently introduced EU Regulation on the Minimum Requirements for Water Reuse.
AQUACYCLE Mediterranean Wastewater Reuse Community
The final output in AQUACYCLE is concerned with the setting up of a Mediterranean Wastewater Reuse Community.
The project’s Final Conference in Lebanon during 23 to 24 June 2023, ran with the theme of inviting everyone to join AQUACYCLE’s Mediterranean Wastewater Reuse Alliance. It was explained to the 200 participants at the event that by endorsing the Final Version of the MedAPOC Charter, they would automatically be joining this Alliance.
Earlier in the project, the Semi-Final Version of the MedAPOC Charter was placed on the project website to mark World Water Day in 20232, which aptly ran with the theme: ‘Accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis’. This created the opportunity to already start inviting water stakeholders from around the Region to read up on the Charter, and to invite them to endorse the Charter by filling their details on a google form, and thus become ‘early members’ of the Alliance. Well over 150 persons from around the Region signed up to this initial initiative. It is particularly noteworthy that the signatories bring a balanced mix of Partners in ongoing ENI CBC Med or other EU funded projects that bring synergies to AQUACYCLE, the Research community, in broader terms as compared to the aforementioned category, Local community representatives, including local decision makers and NGOs, Ministries and entities operating at European/Regional/International level, Public/private entities in charge of water treatment/sanitation and water supply, Water treatment plant operators and technicians. Also noteworthy is that 42% of these signatories are women. There is also a clearly interesting correlation between the date on which new signatories joined and the organization of outreach activities such as the second and third series of stakeholder workshops.
In terms of keeping this initiative ‘alive’ beyond the project duration, it is important to highlight the scope and functionality of the project’s e-learning platform. Indeed, aside from the training material, the platform offers users the possibility to communicate and network with other users, including experts on wastewater treatment plant operators and technicians, from around the world.
In present document focuses on the proceedings of the Final Conference during which the Final Version of the MedAPOC Charter was launched.