SAFE - Sustainable water reuse practices improving safety in agriculture, food and environment

Improving the quality of wastewater will be an important step to develop green agricultural practices. The new treated water will have low natural residue of contaminants and pathogens. High percentage of nutrients that are present in the water will reduce the use of chemical fertilizer. Small local farmers’ will be taught how to manage this important source through the optimization of the irrigation method. The project will advance and optimize several solutions that can allow for direct reuse of wastewater for fertigation. Also, in the context of climate change, agricultural techniques such as vegetable grafting and the use of local varieties better adapted to climate change and Mediterranean conditions will be used to contribute to sustainable production. Reusing reclaimed water in agriculture brings an alternative water source, but also raises the question of pollutants causing health and environmental risk that will be tackled within the SAFE project. The new treated water is an alternative to natural water sources or to traditional reclaimed water use. In both cases the treatments proposed by SAFE will lead to socio-economic benefits for the farmers depending on different factors: i) lower costs of the treated water; ii) higher revenues related to higher yields or to the introduction of more intensive farming systems thanks to a constant and higher water availability; iii) higher product quality because of the reduction of contaminants; iv) higher prices related to more environmentally friendly products SAFE will carry out an economic analysis to assess socio-economic benefits of new practices for small farmers and verify organizational solutions that can better fit the small farmers’ community. SAFE will significantly contribute to obtain information on the social acceptability of wastewater use in agriculture. Factors limiting the diffusion of wastewater use can refer to the farmers and their risk perception, to water availability, to countries’ legislation. The knowledge of these factors allows us to understand the role of extension programs as well as the need for intervention by Mediterranean countries’ policies. Moreover, the application of technological innovation in the Mediterranean area can provide interesting information and concepts to apply similar processes in other regions and continents affected by water scarcity.

SAFE will encourage farmers to adopt agroecological practices based on deployment of a variety of wastewater treatments, multidisciplinary methodologies, and tools through 6 interconnected and complementary Work Packages integrating different partners. The WP1 will focus on development and optimization of the proposed treatments for the removal of the organic load with special focus on the removal of emerging pollutants (mainly pathogens and emerging contaminants) to achieve additional non-conventional water resources according to local needs and standards. This will be obtained through: ● selecting a subgroup of indicator emerging contaminants to evaluate treatments efficiency; ● development and optimization of the proposed treatments to improve removal of emerging biological pollutants; ● the achievement of better and more suitable treatment of non-conventional water resources according to local needs and standards. The WP2 will focus on the impact of wastewater irrigation on: uptake of contaminants, effects on the metabolism of plants, soil microbial diversity and function, and salinity. This will be obtained through: ● determining secondary plant metabolites, antioxidants, and organic micropollutant uptake; ● assessing soil biodiversity; ● comparing different irrigation modes; ● assessing environmental and human health risks. The WP3 will focus on plant environmental adaptation and biotic/abiotic stress resilience. The main objective of WP3 is to test and mitigate the negative impact of water reuse on salinity and soil biodiversity. This will be obtained through: ● use renewable energy sources to minimize energy requirements and product carbon footprint by applying water reuse; ● employ modern -omics tools and in-depth physiology parameters to explore plants’ response and adaptation to wastewater irrigation; ● use sustainable agricultural practices such as vegetable grafting to adapt to water reuse; ● reduce the use of pesticides by utilizing Trichoderma as biofertilizer; The WP4 consit of large field pilot implementation and demonstration. Each situ will demonstrate how the transfer technology will be adapted to local situations for increased crop production. The successful transfer will be achieved thanks to a modelling study and training courses/video clips that will be implemented. Experimental fields will be applied in Tunisia and Algeria, pilot plant in Morocco and greenhouse hydroponic in Greece. The WP5 will focus on modelling, optimization and evaluation of economic impact. Not only the environmental impact and the production yields will be taken into consideration, but either the social impact and the feasibility of the knowledge transfer activity. All the information will be then combined and evaluated all together in an very holistic approach. This will conduct to a model able to predict any excise conditions and, mainly, to find optimized process for any specific boundary set. The WP6 will aims to share the results of the project with stakeholders by developing a joint communication strategy addressed to the selected target groups (farmers, intermediaries, policy makers, researchers and consumers). Furthermore, the project will envisage active participation of stakeholders by involving the different local groups and setting up local user committees.

Agriculture has been recognized as a water intensive activity. By efficient and feasible reuse of wastewater SAFE will provide a lower impact, aimed to a zero water balance in the long term and increase rural resilience when not even mitigation. SAFE will involve at least 3 experimental sites with a direct influence on the agriculture of 4 Countries. Quantity and quality of available water may be more consistent compared to surface water and less affected than surface and groundwater bodies achieving reduced production costs (-10%), sustained agricultural production (+15%) and associated employment (+20%), providing required nutrients for crops, reducing cultivation costs (-10%), overall water consumption (-35%) and treatment needs (-15%) for pumping & importing water, building dams, seawater desalination. SAFE nature-based solutions (NBs) are based on natural processes and mimic natural ecosystems with high stability and buffer capacity, achieving affordable, efficient and cost effective reduction in wastewater management (-35%). Reusing reclaimed water in agriculture results in reducing pollutants (-30%), lowering health and environmental risk. 60-80% reduction of pesticides used in tomato cultivation, through the elimination of fungicide treatments and the reduction of pest treatments and 30% reduction of water uptake in tomatoes. SAFE is developed almost by young women reflecting in young people inclusion (+10 new trainings) and women empowering (+200 among directly and indirectly), to allow work in own areas, thus avoiding depopulation. Stakeholder engagement and people involvement is at the hearth of SAFE: trainings, workshops, promotional materials. At least 3 new integrated farming systems will be developed and assessed in terms of sustainable efficiency, coupling environmental impact and yields in food production. The optimized methodologies gained in SAFE will increase incomes of smallholders by 40% at least, achieved by a combination of higher yields and reduced production costs for water, nutrients, fertilizer and pesticides.