Newsletter September 2020

The Water JPI and BiodivERsA are pleased to pre-announce a joint call for research and innovation projects on Conservation and restoration of degraded ecosystems and their biodiversity, including a focus on aquatic systems.

This joint call includes a focus on freshwater aquatic systems but all environments (i.e. terrestrial, freshwater and marine) are eligible.

This call will cover the following three non-exclusive themes:

• Studying the biological and biophysical processes at stake for conservation/restoration, and their interactions
• Assessing trade-offs and synergies between targets, benefits and policies for conservation and restoration
• Knowledge for improving the effectiveness and upscaling of conservation and restoration actions

At this stage, the following countries have expressed a preliminary interest to participate in the call with a total amount of over 18 Million euros*:

Austria, Belgium, Brazil*, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia and Turkey

* The list of Brazilian States participating in the call will be communicated later

For more information, please check the program's website here.  

The 2nd Workshop of Water4SDGs Knowledge Hub was organized virtually on July 9, 2020. The event was attended by researchers, policy makers and funding agency representatives to frame a ‘position paper’ that addresses the key question of “how to align research agendas and strategies to facilitate the implementation of water related SDGs globally under the pandemic conditions?”. The attendees were invited to handle this issue by addressing the following questions:

• What is the potential of water related RDI activities in responding the crises (short term) and building risk management and resilience capacity (long term) in response to pandemic conditions?
• How far are we from the global implementation of SDG 6 targets by 2030? How did the COVID-19 affected the UN SDGs agenda and what opportunities might have been discovered to foster international cooperation?
• How should research funding organizations address COVID-19-water security connections in national, regional and international call programs (in terms of call topics, structures, eligibility criteria, expected impacts, dissemination and exploitation procedures)?

The morning session of the workshop provided the opportunity for three key-note presentations by the esteemed representatives of EurEau (Bertrand Vallet, Policy Officer), UN-Water (Olcay Unver, Vice-President) and European Commission (Avelino Gonzalez Gonzalez, Senior Policy Officer). In the afternoon, the workshop attendees were split into to break-out discussion groups to scrutinize the zero draft of the position paper.

The expert group of Water4SDGs Knowledge Hub set to work on the position paper following the vacation season with the aim of publishing and disseminating the document until the end of November 2020.

The Water JPI, as part of its supporting Coordination and Support Action IC4Water, is looking at opportunities to develop a common strategy for International Cooperation (IC) with other European initiatives. IC4Water held a workshop on “Future Cooperation in Research and Innovation with countries beyond Europe” on 4 December 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. This workshop followed two workshops held under WaterWorks2015 and two workshop held under IC4WATER. It was designed to elaborate a common strategy with other relevant EU and international initiatives on international cooperation in the context of research, development and innovation (RDI) activities. It was attended by 40 participants representing international funding agencies, international initiatives (PRIMA, CEWP, Belmont Forum) and representatives of the Water economic sector. It aimed at:

• collecting the views from International / non-European initiatives,
• better understanding the difficulties faced to join JPI activities,
• Proposing models for further cooperation with different types of partners.
• Considering how to deal with possible different preferences from the economic sector (in cooperation with WP3).

This should help establishing, when possible, alliances with selected RDI international programmes.

The workshop discussions highlighted the needs to co-construct a Research and Innovation Agenda and related implementing actions, to co-define the priorities, to share the global objectives and means to achieve them, to have flexible procedures, an equitable approach and some incentives to overcome the barriers on IC.

Workshop materials are available here.

The REWATER project proposes to develop an innovative joint research and application of technologies that will minimize negative impacts of waste water reuse in the environment, decreasing the undesirable introduction of emerging contaminants (ECs) in agriculture and aquatic systems, reducing their spread within the food chain and, and consequently, human exposure. According to the Watch List of Substances established under the Water Framework Directive (Decision EU 2018/840), ECs such as specific pharmaceuticals and pesticides should be monitored, especially because of the reduced removal of these pollutants by conventional treatments in Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs).

Therefore, pharmaceuticals and their transformation products and pesticides were monitored, using chromatographic techniques, in the Lis River (Portugal) and the Putna river (Romania) as well as the contributions of the WWTPs located along these rivers (Figure X). Pharmaceuticals and pesticides were detected from the source to the mouth of the rivers and in influents and effluents from the WWTPs.

To simplify the analysis techniques, small and very low-cost (paper-based and molecularly imprinted polymers) electroanalytical devices were developed and applied to the determination of ECs.

Because of the presence of the ECs in the analysed waters, tertiary treatment processes for their removal were studied: advanced oxidation (e.g. electro-Fenton), bioremediation (e.g. mycoremediation and phycoremediation), adsorption using biochars, and combinations of these processes.

However, even if the concentration of ECs is achieved by these treatment processes this does not necessary reflect a relevant toxicity reduction. The complementary evaluation of toxicity decrease was based on integrated endpoints using different animal models, such as the pond snail (Figure Y) and zebrafish embryo/larvae.

Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing is ongoing to assess the sustainability and the economic viability of the treatment processes at full scale.

In summary, the goals of the REWATER project are: (i) Monitoring ECs in two rivers and WWTPs (ii) Design of electrochemical (bio)sensors for specific ECs with increased sensitivity, lower costs and easier to use; (iii) Improvement of treatment technologies (biological and electrochemical) to remove ECs, providing new insights into environmental and economic approaches; (iv) generation of ecotoxicological tools that may also be employed in the monitoring of ECs in natural aquatic ecosystems, and strategic follow-up monitoring of WW treatment.

Interaction among the consortium partners, allied with stakeholders of the water industry, will enhance collaborative research and innovation, as well as national and international cooperation in the water sector, beyond the REWATER lifespan. The project also allowed mobility of the consortium members, post-graduate students and post-doctoral fellows engaged in the project.

The consortium organized an international videoconference in June 2020. This conference allowed the dissemination of the results, fruitful discussions of the work and networking.

More information about the project can be found at: www2.isep.ipp.pt/rewater

AgriAs summarized European databases and developed recommendations and guidelines for the sustainable management of risks posed by arsenic in agricultural areas. Research institutes, universities and companies from Finland, France, Germany and Sweden participated in the project.

Agricultural topsoil contains more arsenic on average in central and southern Europe than in northern Europe (Fig. 1). There are geological reasons for the difference. However, contamination from mining activities, ammunition, wood preservatives, insecticides and herbicides has increased arsenic concentrations in the European environment.

The French study site was an area of destruction of World War I chemical ammunition located at Verdun in a sensitive zone both for agriculture and groundwater (Fig. 2). The German study site in Freiberg, Saxony, is characterized by mining and ore processing. After 800 years of mining, 288 km² of agricultural soils show values exceeding the German action value of 50 mg/kg arsenic.

Soil remediation experiments were successful with a biologically synthesized adsorbent sorpP.

The preliminary health risk assessment showed that if a significant proportion of dietary intake comes from contaminated sites, the consumption of contaminated food products can lead to increased health risks.

Experimental and sustainability analysis for arsenic removal technologies from agricultural surface water showed that the adsorption and coagulation-filtration processes were the most feasible options for the treatment of surface waters with significant arsenic concentrations.

Recommendations were compiled in close cooperation with authorities and stakeholders.

Finally, we established a general risk management. Risk management for safe use is the main option for extensive agricultural areas, while remediation options that directly treat the soil can only be considered in smaller areas subject to sensitive use. Each site has different characteristics and therefore we recommend the case-by-case assessments and agricultural treatments to be assessed on a small scale before attempting the treatment of large areas.

Please see the Layman’s report of the AgriAs project: http://projects.gtk.fi/export/sites/projects/AgriAs/downloads/AgriAs_Laymans_report_17_12_2019.pdf

Additional information: Project Coordinator Kirsti Loukola-Ruskeeniemi, Geological Survey of Finland. E-mail: kirsti.loukola-ruskeeniemi@gtk.fi

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Acknowledgements

The AgriAs project ‘Evaluation and management of arsenic contamination in agricultural soil and water’ was co-funded by the European Union and the Academy of Finland, L'Agence nationale de la recherche, Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft and Forskningsrådet FORMAS under the ERA-NET Cofund WaterWorks2015 Call. The ERA-NET is an integral part of the 2016 Joint Activities developed by the Water Challenges for a Changing World Joint Programme Initiative (Water JPI).