The AQUACYCLE Partnership warmly welcomes the appraisal by Dr. Joelle Duplay on the occasion of the internal mid-term review-of-progress. The online meeting which took place during 23 and 24 February 2021, was organized with the motto “Building on what has been achieved to reach all of our targets”.

To my personal point of view the project has made remarkable progress despite the many obstacles related to the declaration of a health emergency in the partner countries.

The approaches and technologies used in the project activities are very well thought out and promising, especially since they are adapted to the real needs of small and medium-sized rural communities.

"The enthusiasm and spirit of cooperation among the AQUACYCLE teams appealed to me in particular. The dynamic effort of the partnership is reflected in the many communication and dissemination actions that have been deployed also through social media and have met with rapidly growing and resounding success.

The participatory approach that is being adopted is also one of the strong points of this project. This will be valuable not only to the stakeholders concerned with the cost-efficiency of wastewater treatment technologies, but to the entire communities who are set to benefit from treated wastewater reuse.

Another strong point is the development of a WebGIS. As a powerful decision-making tool it will guide the development of action plans for the reuse of wastewater adapted to the sites concerned. The multitude of parameters that are taken into account by the tool should ensure both the cost-effectiveness and the environmental sustainability of the reuse action plans. In this context a very significant and remarkable effort is being dedicated to training material that will allow for the extended use also in other sites and communities.

In short, AQUACYCLE presents itself as a very beautiful project, with dynamic and talented teams which marks the spirit of cross-border cooperation and is set to bring a significant contribution to adapting to the vagaries of climate change, in particular increased temperatures together with more frequent and more prolonged episodes of drought."

Dr. Joelle Duplay is a researcher at the Laboratory of Hydrology and Geochemistry of Strasbourg which belongs to the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. She holds a PhD degree (1982) and a State doctorate in Science of the University of Strasbourg (1988). Her research interests are in Clay Geochemistry, in particular the surface reactivity and adsorption properties of clays and their capacity to purify wastewater.