SuWaNu Europe is a project focused on the reuse of treated wastewater in agriculture. The reason behind is that wastewater when treated according to appropriate standards and methods has a strong potential to complement conventional water resources used in agricultural irrigation.

The aim of the project is to promote the effective exchange of knowledge, experience and skills between practitioners and relevant actors of water reuse in agriculture, so that direct applicable technological and organizational solutions are widely and balanced disseminated all around Europe resulting in a more resilient agricultural sector to cope with water scarcity and climate change effects.

SuWaNu Europe is based on a previous EU project called SuWaNu: Sustainable Water treatment and Nutrient reuse options, which consisted in developing strategies based on water reuse to solve problems such as the scarcity or the availability of nutrients. However, SuWaNu Europe has been conceived not only as an extension of former SuWaNu project activities but also as the creation of a new instrument based on an existing network to accelerate the uptake of research results in the field of water reuse in agriculture.

For that reason, the project will create Regional Working Groups between consortium members and relevant actors in 8 target regions that will work to spread the project findings. The objective is to establish permanent links – beyond the project timeframe – with relevant local actors, encouraging flow of information among researchers, private innovators, civil organizations and public administration.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 818088 .The sole responsibility for the content lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.

Project Results

As a result of this project is expected to:

– Identify and extract existing practical knowledge from projects, networks, success stories and research results with potential application for practitioners, e.g. farmers, agricultural advisory groups, water engineers and operators, etc.

– Set the basis in a participatory and evidence-based process for the development of implementation strategies in 8 target regions.

– Develop strategies and recommendations to pave the way for the implementation of water reuse solutions.

– Create regional networks that combine efforts within and outside the consortium to support implementation and uptake of organizational and technological solutions.

– Develop, summarize and structure practical knowledge for practitioners in a way that it is easy to understand.

– Increase the capacities of practitioners and other stakeholders in water reuse for irrigation.

– Strengthen the links between water and farming sectors in order to find synergies for water reuse in agriculture.

– Create synergies between Regional Working Groups, operational groups and national and international networks (EIP-Agri, ERIAFF, ERRIN, EUFRAS, WIRE, WssTP, etc.), practitioners, supporting the implementation of water reuse.