The EU is currently facing the challenge of recycling materials and water of high quality to become carbon neutral by decreasing its energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The current Water Framework Directive has strict regulations on a wide range of contaminants, and most treatments continuously increase the energy demand of the water cycle. Yet, the EU is committed to ambitious targets to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, including the legally binding 2015 Paris agreement. These conflicting interests have motivated REWATERGY, a partnership within the water-energy nexus. This integrated network, led by industry in partnership with world leading academic institutions, envisions the scientific and technological opportunities of such challenges with direct economic and social impacts to the EU. Three research objectives set the foundation of this ambitious programme, i) enhance the energy recovery from waste water streams inspired by the circular economy concept, ii) improve the energy efficiency of water disinfection and removal of contaminants of emerging concern, and iii) increase the resilience of distributed household safe drinking water systems addressing potential health and safety challenges. The programme is particularly designed to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit by the collaborative design, development and manufacturing of new prototypes aligned with the three research objectives. This training concept will have a long term impact by providing a stream of highly trained innovative scientists and engineers able to communicate ideas and to develop creative solutions for the adoption of novel technologies in the market.

Groundwater is a key resource for water supply which is currently jeopardised by: i) saline intrusion; ii) pollution with pesticides and nutrients (agriculture/farming), pharmaceuticals and antibiotic resistance genes from WWTP effluents, hydrocarbons and heavy metals (runoff), and microplastics (both); iii) global and climate change effects. Although several initiatives have developed actions and tools towards groundwater monitoring and protection, additional knowledge is needed to understand the synergistic effects and risks of multiple stressors and pollutants, and to develop cost-efficient groundwater monitoring strategies, pollution prevention/mitigation technologies, and early-warning DSS. NINFA will provide a novel strategy based on an early-warning DSS and knowledge database (NINFA Platform) and innovaDiffuse pollution affects 35% of the area of groundwater bodies with contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides, and nutrients (leading to eutrophication and lack of oxygen). Other pollution sources, including sewage from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and runoff infiltration in cities (especially during storm events), contaminate groundwater with contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) such as pharmaceuticals, microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes and with hydrocarbons and heavy metals, respectively. Moreover, aquifer exploitation for water consumption leads to increased pressure on groundwater resources, which may be aggravated by climate change (lack of aquifers' natural recharge). In coastal aquifers, this problem is worsened due to saline intrusion, mainly caused by water extraction, which affects the quality of the groundwater. The innovative concept of NINFA is to facilitate the transition to a more effective decision-making system in groundwater management, by widening the knowledge on water flows, the in-situ mobility and transformation of CEC and establishing predictive models to promote the treatment and reuse of water and its quality.

SABANA aims at developing a large-scale integrated microalgae-based biorefinery for the production of biostimulants, biopesticides and feed additives, in addition to biofertilizers and aquafeed, using only marine water and nutrients from wastewaters (sewage, centrate and pig manure). The objective is to achieve a zero-waste process at a demonstration scales up to 5 ha sustainable both environmentally and economically. A Demonstration Centre of this biorefinery will be operated to demonstrate the technology, assess the operating characteristics of the system, evaluate environment impacts and collaborate with potential customers for use. The key advantages of SABANA project are: the sustainability of the process, using marine water and recovering nutrients from wastewaters while minimizing the energy consumption, and the socioeconomic benefits, due to the relevance of the target bioproducts for two major pillars in food production as agriculture and aquaculture. Bioproducts capable of increasing the yield of crops and fish production are highly demanded, whereas recovery of nutrients is a priority issue in the EU. Instead of considering wastewater as an inevitably useless and problematic residue of our society, SABANA acknowledges its potential as an opportunity for economically relevant sectors. SABANA project includes (i) the utilization of microalgae-bacteria consortia and in co-culture with other algae to control grazing species, (ii) the implementation of efficient thin-layer cascade and raceway, (iii) the scale-up of reactors to ensure stable operation, (iv) to use marine water to increase the sustainability of the process; (v) to recover nutrients from wastewaters, (vi) to develop harvesting processes taking into account the remaining water, (vii) to establish processes for mild/energy efficient extraction of bioproducts, (viii) to process residual biomass to produce biofertilizers and aquafeed in zero-waste schemes, (ix) using robust and sustainable technology