Ebro River Basin

Located in Northeastern Spain, the Ebro River basin will be the place where NENUPHAR project partners attempt to demonstrate the value of pig manure through the production of new bio-based fertilizers (BBFs) in order to recover the Nitrogen and Phosphorous from the manure

The regions of Aragón and Cataluña that border the Ebro River basin are comparable in the intensity of their pig farming activities (cumulatively accounting for half of Spanish production), resulting in similar scale of nitrate pollution. The nitrogen load from pig manure had already overcome land’s capacity to assimilate it, which had led to the load’s polluting intrusions into nearby aquifers and surface waters. The resulting nitrification causes enormous environmental damage while challenging the continuity/sustainability of such agricultural practices.

The demo case’s main stakeholders are CIRCE as the site’s coordinator, ammonia stripping plant operator GEST that is assisted with technical support by ANOLTRI, along with other field-work operators CAYC and UVIC-UCC  (PS: where to put CHE – “River basin manager, stakeholder engagement, provision of experimental plot for demonstration”)

The main goal is to use a redesigned “ammonia stripper” to test the recovery of nutrients in order to demonstrate how such a technique would allow to mitigate nutrient pollution while providing the needed fertilisers for the crops in areas with high farm intensity.