intoDBP will create innovative tools and strategies to improve water quality management for safe human use and a healthy environment. It focuses on catchment protection and forecasting, transformative drinking water treatment, and real-time monitoring to combat the effects of climate and global change. In particular, intoDBP focuses on pollution and risks related to disinfection by-products (DBPs). By developing and applying advanced, integrated, and cost-effective sensors and analytical methods, intoDBP will expand knowledge on water quality and DBP precursors to better understand its formation and human exposure in Europe. intoDBP monitoring results will feed into numerical forecasting tools to predict source water changes and formulate climate change adaptation pathways at catchment and treatment scale. intoDBP also develops transformative options for advanced and cost-effective upgrade of water treatment and disinfection. In the intoDBP consortium researchers, small and large enterprises, communication experts and public services join forces to generate interdisciplinary solutions, that will generate a renewed perspective of drinking water surveillance, support decision-making and governance, and increase system resilience. intoDBP will implement and validate its cross-cutting products in four complementary case studies from three European countries where compliance with DBP regulation currently is an acknowledged challenge. The direct and visible positive impact of intoDBP in the case studies will foster rapid product adoption at a European and global scale, thus strengthening Europe’s position and role in the global water market. Reaching out beyond the water sector itself, intoDBP will directly engage society through surveys to analyse exposure to DBPs, collect data about catchment protection initiatives, create awareness and promote sustainable consumer behaviour such as reducing bottled water consumption.

The project BIOGASMENA follows an innovative, integrated and multi-disciplinary approach for the development of biogas technology and know-how in the ERA and the MENA region, combining technology transfer and laboratory research with academic exchanges, communication and training activities directed to both the general public, especially small farmers from the MENA region, and the academic community, with a particular focus on young researchers. The project includes the following tasks: (1) building dry fermentation biogas plant at pilot scale, (2) building a hybrid energy system at pilot scale, combining biogas, solar and wind energies for autonomous electricity supply, (3) equipping biogas laboratories in Algeria and Tunisia, (4) investigating biogas production in the MENA region, in particular via dry fermentation in lab-scale and bench-scale experiments, (5) including results into an online database for modeling of bioconversion kinetics, (6) optimizing digestate treatment, characterization and utilization, (7) investigating the combination of biogas production with microalgae cultivation, (8) LCA and techno-economic analyzes of designs for biogas production in the MENA region, (9) training young researchers from the MENA region in EU, in particular by following CIHEAM courses (10) informing of the research community, farmers, and the general public about biogas technology. A small-scale pilot plant of 5m3, with a planned electrical power of 500W will be built in Tunisia with concerted efforts from the partners. A thermal solar heating system will be implemented to maintain the temperature of the reactors. The biogas plant will be integrated into a hybrid system with solar photovoltaic and wind energy for grid-independent (island) electricity production, and serve as a demonstration platform for future research in the MENA region. Research laboratories in the MENA region will be equipped. In Tunisia as well, dry fermentation reactors will be built at the laboratory and coupled with a module for dewatering and ultrafiltration, which will be connected to microalgae cultures. In Algeria, a highly efficient, patented methane potential assay developed previously at the University of Hohenheim, will be installed. In the MENA region and EU, concerted research efforts will be carried out to optimize the biogas process, in particular with dry fermentation, focusing on temperature level, structure of the feedstocks, nutrient balance, as well as trace metals supply and supplementation. The quality and maturity of digestates from dry fermentation will be analyzed, and tested for plant growth in pot experiments. Furthermore, innovative digestate treatment methods will be tested, including a system for ammonia recovery during drying of digestate, and the cultivation of saline microalgae and mixotrophic microalgae fed with the liquid fraction of digestate. Young Researchers from the MENA region will move to EU to work on practical topics of the project. Promising young students will be sent to CIHEAM-IAMB in Bari to follow the International Master course in Land and Water Engineering, with second-year secondments on the project. Finally, experiences of rural communities in Egypt with household biogas production based on Indian-type digesters will be analyzed, and the techno-economic potential for the implementation of dry fermentation for electricity production will be studied.

Climate change and population growth are expected to exacerbate the water crisis of Mediterranean African Countries (MACs), where agriculture accounts for 80-85% of freshwater consumption. The aim of MADFORWATER is to develop a set of integrated technological and management solutions to enhance wastewater treatment, reuse for irrigation and water efficiency in agriculture in three MACs (Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt). MADFORWATER will develop and adapt to three main hydrological basins in the selected MACs technologies for the production of irrigation-quality water from drainage canals, municipal, agro-industrial and industrial wastewaters, and technologies for water efficiency and reuse in agriculture, initially validated at laboratory scale. Selected technologies will be further adapted and validated in four field pilot plants of integrated wastewater treatment/reuse. Integrated strategies for wastewater treatment and reuse targeted to the selected basins will be developed, and guidelines for the development of integrated water management strategies in other basins of the three target MACs will be produced, considering climate change, population increase and economic growth scenarios. The social and technical suitability of the developed technologies and non-technological instruments in relation to the local context will be evaluated with the participation of MAC stakeholders and partners. Guidelines on economic instruments and policies for the effective implementation of the proposed water management solutions in the target MACs will be developed. The project will lead to a relevant long-term impact in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia in terms of increased wastewater treatment, wastewater reuse, food production and income in the agricultural and water treatment sectors, and decreased groundwater exploitation, water pollution and food contamination. The MADFORWATER consortium consists of 18 partners, 5 of which from the 3 MACs and 1 from China.