The increased use of water resources and problems arising from climate change ‘mean reusing water is emerging as a growing need’ since it is an asset that is ‘too valuable to be used just once, in a context of water scarcity resulting from population growth’, explains Miquel Rovira, the director of the Eurecat technology centre’s Sustainability Division, on the occasion of World Water Day.
Spain ‘is the European country that reuses water most, with 75 per cent of the continent’s total; however, there is still a very significant volume of potentially reusable water that’s dumped into the sea and represents a lost opportunity, as only 10 per cent of waste water is reused’, Rovira points out.
In this context, ‘Spain can export technology and knowledge’ since the implementation of systems for regeneration and reuse ‘requires development and innovation activities to increase the trust in new circular economy schemes’, adds Eurecat’s Sustainability Division director.
From his point of view, ‘one opportunity to increase the implementation of reuse is the improvement in risk management, considering the existing lack of knowledge about the behaviour and toxicity of a large number of compounds derived from human activity that are found in effluents’.
New safe reuse schemes
‘Another significant hurdle in terms of implementing tertiary treatment systems that will enable water regeneration and reuse are the costs’, so ‘choosing the right technologies to be implemented and optimally running the treatment systems based on the different end uses will make it possible to adjust the operating costs, thus facilitating the implementation and launch of new reuse schemes safely’, says Xavier Martínez, the director of Eurecat’s Air, Water and Soil Unit.
As a result of this need, the SUGGEREIX project, funded by the Catalan Water Agency (Agència Catalana de l’Aigua – ACA) and led by the Eurecat technology centre, aims to bring together dispersed knowledge about the regeneration of purified waste water, with a special emphasis on managing polluting compounds of microbiological origin, trace organics and heavy metals.
For this purpose, an innovative decision support system has been developed that will help entities that manage reuse schemes to plan future reuse initiatives, as well as to evaluate those currently in operation.
The decision support system will finish being validated in the first half of 2022 with three demonstrators that are also success stories in the reuse of water for difference uses, in Tossa de Mar, Lloret de Mar and El Prat de Llobregat, which include non-potable urban uses, the irrigation of garden areas and the recharge of aquifers and maintenance of minimum flows.
Overall, as part of the SUGGEREIX project, a total of 162 success stories of reuse schemes implemented at national and international level have been identified and can be viewed on the project website. Moreover, 13 reference regulatory guidelines for reuse in force in countries such as Spain, the USA, Australia and Israel, have been evaluated.
All this knowledge generated from the SUGGEREIX project aims to become a tool that will make it possible to optimise the management of reuse schemes under optimal conditions of consumption and safety while facilitating the possibility of implementing new reuse schemes, promoting the circular economy and climate resilience.
SUGGEREIX, which will end in June, also includes the participation of the Catalan Water Partnership, the Catalan Institute for Water Research, the Cetaqua water technology centre and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
