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The consortium members of the NENUPHAR project
CIRCE is a technology center, founded in 1993, that seeks to provide innovative solutions for sustainable development. CIRCE works to improve the competitiveness of companies by generating technology transfer through market-oriented R&D&i and training activities within the field of sustainability and efficiency of resources, energy networks and renewable energies.
CIRCE will lead WP1 and WP3 with responsibilities for project coordination and technical leadership in the analysis of new value chain opportunities. In the technical leadership, CIRCE will play an essential role in developing a methodology to estimate N/P emissions and the waste mapping in the Aragón region, being able to provide new services and transfer knowledge to companies based on these results. CIRCE’s active involvement extends to monitoring and operating the process at the Spanish demosite. Furthermore, CIRCE will be involved in other tasks, such as the new governance model, current policies, and competencies of each demonstration centre, as well as the implementation of technical solutions and generation of project products. CIRCE will spearhead the development of a guidebook providing recommendations to foster the design of modern nutrient management policies and research agendas.
La Comunidad General de Regantes del Canal de Aragón y Cataluña, or the General Community of Irrigators of the Canal of Aragon and Catalonia (CAYC), represents 132 irrigation communities and more than 1000 farms between Aragón and Cataluña, playing a key on assessing the nutrients balance in their irrigation area and creating awareness between their members.
CAYC will participate in the Ebro’s river basin demonstrator, playing a key on assessing the nutrients balance in its irrigation area, by analysing the N and P nutrient balance and supervising the field trials. In addition, CAYC will create awareness between its members (132 irrigation communities and more than 1000 farms between Aragón and Cataluña ) through the preparation of good practices for members, a replicable model for other intensive areas from the agricultural and livestock point of view, and political recommendations particularly oriented to propose more coherent regulations for nutrient management.
The Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro is the Basin Organization or Water Authority responsible for water management within the Ebro basin. It was created in 1926. It’s under the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge of the Spanish Government.
Its main tasks are:
– The carrying out of the Hydrological Plan of the Ebro basin
– The administration and control of public waters domain: Licensing for water users, hydrology and monitoring networks, water quality and river ecosystems, flood and drought management.
– Design, project, construction and operation of water works and infrastructure of general interest for the Nation within the Ebro basin.
Gestcompost is a leading private company in the treatment and recovery of organic and non-hazardous biodegradable waste from different sectors (agri-food, urban, industrial, agricultural…).
Our mission is to transform waste into resources, increasing the value of waste. At Gestcompost we develop different processes to revalue them so that they can start a second life as useful and valuable resources, all through sustainable criteria.
In the Ebro river basin, the demonstration (WP3&WP5) will take place in an anaerobic digestor of 4.800 m3 in the region of Zaragoza operated by GESTCOMPOST. GESTCOMPOST will redesign a stripping process installed in order to treat the liquid digestate produced from the anaerobic digestion of manure and SANDACH products to reduce their nitrogen content and facilitate its recovery for other uses. Several design lay-out changes are needed to improve the initial process and its performance. For this adaptation in order to redirect the process to the targets to be achieved, the redesign will require to treat pig manure, as well as reduce phosphorous concentration, incorporation of new equipment, instrumentation, tanks will be necessary to integrate to the initial design.
The BETA Technological Centre was created in 2014 to promote research activity at UVIC-UCC. Its main mission is to become a relevant actor in the field of sustainable rural development. The Center has the vision of becoming a national and international scientific reference for the solution of environmental problems involving the integration of the treatment of gaseous effluents, wastewater and organic solid waste. It also aims to be a pioneering actor in the integration of environmental, economic and social sustainability in industrial sectors, as well as to develop the capacity to directly influence the development of evidence-based environmental policies.
Within the NENUPHAR project, BETA TC (UVIC-UCC) is the leader of WP2 and WP4 and will bring its expertise both on governance and technical issues on sustainable nutrient management.
Zemnieku Saeima (Union «Farmers’ Parliament», ZSA) is an NGO uniting around 900 farmers as members in Latvia. The organisation was founded in 1999 and since then has followed agro-political issues in Latvia and across Europe, contributed to legislative development in the field, and successfully implemented a variety of projects, domestically and internationally.
ZSA is a leader of WP5 – a very practical work package of the Project, that aims to test and demonstrate the performance of the NENUPHAR governance solutions and processes through a demonstration campaign in a real environment in the three main demonstration sites. To ensure the success of the tasks of WP5 in general and in the Lielupe River basin, ZSA is actively involved in all work packages of the project.
Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU) is a state-founded multi-profile higher education and research institution, which provides higher education in unique fields of studies in Latvia such as agriculture, veterinary medicine, food technology, forestry and water management and develops research-based learning opportunities. The vision of LBTU is to become a modern, nationally and internationally recognised science university – a leader in the creation of innovations related to the bioeconomy and related industries and in the sustainable use of natural resources in the Baltic Sea region.
LBTU will contribute to the NENUPHAR project in all work packages, while most of the time and effort will be dedicated to WP5 including demonstration and monitoring activities carried out in the Lielupe River basin to evaluate the effects of application of composted sewage sludge in agricultural fields in terms of soil and water quality and emissions of greenhouse gases.
Latvian Water and Wastewater Works Association unites 39 public owned water service organisations as members that covers 96% of water services in Latvia and 13 water sector related organisations as associated members. LUKA as a professional non-governmental organisation, has been instrumental in the development and improvement of the water sector in Latvia since 1990.
In terms of the NENUPHAR project LUKA will contribute to activities related to wastewater sludge implementation in circular economy and nutrient recirculation.
The public body National Regional Development Agency has a long track record of successfully implementing a wide range of national and international projects.
Will predominantly contribute to the activities of WP5 (i.e. monitoring and demonstration). That aims to test and demonstrate the performance of the NENUPHAR governance solutions and processes through a demonstration campaign in a real environment in the three main demonstration sites. NRDA will be responsible for finding interested stakeholders, training farmers and publicising the project in Lithuania. To ensure the success of projects NRDA is actively involved in all work.
Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is the second-largest university in Lithuania.
The VMU team involved in the NENUPHAR project has both the experience and competence to conduct research in agricultural water management, addressing soil-water-plant relationships and best management practices for non-point source water pollution control in agriculture. Therefore, VMU will predominantly contribute to the activities of WP5 (i.e. monitoring and demonstration). The focus will be on recovering N and P flows from composted wastewater sludge in the transboundary Lielupe River basin, along with monitoring N and P emissions in water, soil, and air to reduce the risks of environmental pollution.
The Institute of Agricultural Economics Nonprofit Kft. (AKI) is a private scientific institute supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture. AKI is a research and knowledge centre with the most extensive agricultural economics databases and the most significant policy expertise in Hungary, performing both public duties and state functions. By the extensive collection and processing of data, policy analysis and decision support, AKI provides valuable assistance for progressing agriculture and strengthening rural livelihoods.
AKI is mainly involved in setting up the new regulatory framework and in implementing capacity building tasks as the leader of the work package (WP6), but also leads several tasks and is involved as an expert in almost all WPs.
TEBIKE was founded in 2000 and is currently a family business Ltd. in Győr -Ménfőcsanak. Although the company is only 24 years old, it is in its third generation of dairy commitment. In order to meet the highest possible standards, a HACCP quality assurance system was established at the factory in 2002. The company name TEBIKE (cow, sheep, goat) reflects the type of milk used. The company has a complete dairy infrastructure, including cow, goat and sheep milk processing equipment such as pasteurisation units, homogeneous machine, lying and standing press machine, skimming machine, ultrafiltration systems, milk large tub, etc.
TEBIKE is an active participant in the project, taking part in activities such as, provision of research and technology infrastructure, technology development, prototyping and demonstration, communication, dissemination and stakeholder engagement.
Since it was founded in 1952, the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (SUA) has attained the position of one of Slovakia’s leading universities in the period. The University is consistently rated in the top group for the high quality of its teaching and research in the Slovak Republic and it is the only agriculture-focused university in Slovakia.
SUA will participate in all work packages and will focus on design and testing of the nature-based solutions combined with biochemical and physical systems to improve the treatment efficiency of wastewaters from dairy production with the potential of N/P recovery. The proposed methods with the best performance will be further tested at a larger scale.
Vysokoškolský poľnohospodársky podnik SPU, s. r. o. located in Kolíňany was established by SUA in Nitra as a specialised teaching facility for implementation of practical teaching of accredited study programs in agricultural sciences (University’s agricultural farm).
It has a role of an associated entity within the NENUPHAR project. It will serve as a demo site on the Slovak side of the Danube River demo site region within WP5 for testing the treatment methods of wastewater from dairy production by approaches that will be developed by SUA in Nitra.
A part of the Steinbeis Europa Zentrum, the Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH (SIG, Germany) is a partner for innovation management, market development and strategic partnerships. SIG offers access to research, international markets and also individualised support for innovation management as well as EU funding.
Within NENUPHAR, SIG supports tasks for the work packages concerning governance models to support dialogue and cooperation (WP2), assessment of regulatory and economic instruments (WP4), demonstration and impact assessment (WP5) as well as dissemination, exploitation, and communication (WP7). Within the latter, SIG is the task leader for results exploitation and IPR management.
Bornholms Energi & Forsyning is a municipal utility company that produces electricity, water and heat and handles wastewater on Bornholm (Denmark) in the Baltic Sea.
For the past 16 years, Bornholms Energi & Forsyning has been pioneer when it comes to analysis, tests, demonstrations and data within future energy and utility technology.
Bornholm island is one of the insular systems where NENUPHAR’s approach will be replicated. The island provides an opportunity to showcase nutrient recovery from waste streams in a specific regional context.
More coming soon…
DRAXIS was founded in 2000 in Thessaloniki and specialises in environmental engineering, software development and impact assessment. The aim is to provide innovative scientific and technological solutions around the environment, combining multiple fields. The areas of expertise are: circular economy and sustainability, climate change and air quality.
DRAXIS is responsible for the development of the monitoring framework by creating a longlist of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure state and change in governance dynamics as well as the technical and the environmental parameters for the demonstration stage of each demo-site. Also, DRAXIS will assess the sustainability (Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA)) of the demo-sites in terms of environmental, economic and social impacts. Finally, DRAXIS will develop an online Geospatial Intelligence Platform which aims to support the identification of synergies between the generation of waste and areas with need of N/P input, facilitating the exploitation and/or disposal pathways of these wastes.
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is an extensive network comprising roughly 180 environmental citizens’ organisations spanning over 40 countries. Functioning as a democratic federation, the EEB represents local, national, European, and international groups across European Union Member States, as well as some accession and neighbouring countries.
The EEB provides an information service, facilitates working groups, and develops position papers on EU agenda topics. It represents members in discussions with key EU bodies like the European Commission, Parliament, and Council. Additionally, it coordinates closely with national members and monitors EU enlargement and pan-European issues, including those related to the Aarhus Convention.
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is Europe’s largest network of environmental NGOs (170 civil organisations from 35 countries) and will lead WP7 on communication and dissemination of NENUPHAR project. Within the NENUPHAR project, the EEB is responsible for leading on and coordinating the communication and dissemination of the project-related content, as well as the overall results. This involves mapping a coherent communications and dissemination strategy, developing the project visual identity, managing outward-facing public content and gathering and disseminating scientific publications related to the NENUPHAR project, and generally supporting the communicability of all work developed by project partners. The EEB will also support with the work of NENUPHAR regarding upscaling governance solutions for nutrient management and recycling. It will draw on its expertise within the sphere of water pollution, as well as the specific current context of EU policy structures and instruments relevant to the work of NENUPHAR.
Széchenyi István University, situated in two cities (Győr and Mosonmagyaróvár) in the centre of Central Europe’s golden triangle: between the capitals of Hungary, Austria and Slovakia. The university provides education, as well as pursuing research in the fields of engineering – particularly for the automotive industry -, computer sciences, architecture, pedagogy, economics, international relations, law and administration, social work, medicine and health, musical arts, and agriculture. Its activities encompass training at all levels, from vocational courses, BSc and MSc degree programs to its doctoral schools and further training. The Albert Kázmér Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences in Mosonmagyaróvár located in Mosonmagyaróvár. Academic studies are carried out in the fields of general agricultural sciences, food quality assurance and agricultural economics via four under-graduate BSc and nine post-graduate MSc programs. New laboratories with modern equipment have been established for research and educational purposes over the course of the past decades.
SZE will lead the Danube River Basin Demonstrator (WP3&WP5), extended in Hungary and Slovakia. Within the Hungarian side, SZE will design and monitor the membrane filtration by ozone pre-treatment technology that will be tested in the industrial pilot of TEBIKE. The combination of membrane separation and high-efficiency oxidation processes, during which the ozone used can efficiently oxidize those compounds that cause membrane clogging, increasing the life expectancy of the membranes. The micro-flocculation effect of ozone may play a significant role in increasing the elimination efficiency and may decrease the extent of membrane fouling. The remaining sludge will be utilised for feed compound production or for biogas production, while the filtrate can be discharged into wastewater-treatment fermenters.