Tuesday, 24 June 2025.- The Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development is promoting the use of reclaimed water for Andalusian agriculture through the European project ‘I-ReWater. Sustainable management of water resources in irrigated agriculture in the Sudoe area’. This initiative involves 16 entities from Spain, Andorra, Portugal and France, and has been approved under the Interreg Sudoe 2021-2027 call for proposals. It has a budget of more than €2.2 million, 75% of which is financed by the ERDF, and its main objective is to develop formulas for the sustainable management of water resources.
Participation in this European project and its provisional results is one of the topics to be addressed at the conference ‘Circular water economy. Use of reclaimed water in agriculture’, to be held this Tuesday at the Regional Ministry of Agriculture as part of the European Green Week 2025 activities. The conference, which was attended by more than 50 participants, aims to promote actions to raise awareness of the circular economy, encourage public dialogue on sustainable solutions and showcase innovative initiatives.
During the opening of the event, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Livestock and Rural Development, Consolación Vera, highlighted the importance of water for the development of the region, while recalling the unique nature of Andalusia’s water resources, ‘aggravated by the effects of climate change’.
In this regard, she reviewed the various measures implemented by the Regional Ministry of Agriculture in the field of water and highlighted the need for unconventional water resources, i.e. desalinated and reclaimed water.
In this regard, he added that the Andalusian Government already uses these resources for various productive activities in the region and announced that the Andalusian strategy for unconventional resources will be approved after the summer, with which Andalusia aims to become the region with the highest capacity for reclaimed water.
Finally, with regard to water resources for advancing towards more sustainable and efficient agriculture, he referred to the Parra Plan, which makes reclaimed water available to irrigators for crop irrigation with the aim of providing farmers with more water resources. The plan has a budget of €165 million and will be implemented in various Andalusian provinces.
15 pilot projects, 2 in Andalusia
I-ReWater includes the development of a total of 15 pilot projects to test the use of reclaimed water on irrigated agricultural plots with 13 woody crops and two horticultural crops.
Among the crops to be evaluated, thanks to the experience of the participating partners, are watermelon, hops, vines and almonds, as well as table olives and tomatoes, which are the initiatives being developed in Andalusia.
The two pilot plots are located at the headquarters of the Experimental Centre for New Water Technologies (CENTA) in Carrión de los Céspedes (Seville). To obtain the reclaimed water, water is taken from an existing wastewater storage lagoon at these facilities, which is treated using artificial wetlands. The process continues with ultrasound treatment to remove microalgae and E. coli, as well as a pressure sand filter and a mesh filter, which allows reclaimed water of a quality suitable for the aforementioned crops to be obtained.
After completing the first campaign of this pilot test, it has been verified that the quality of the reclaimed water for irrigation complies with the standards of European Regulation 2020/741 on reuse in agricultural irrigation for quality C.
During this year, the second table olive growing campaign (of the Gordal, Manzanilla and Verdial varieties) will be carried out using reclaimed water on a 1.2-hectare plot, which has been equipped with sensors to measure soil condition, plot productivity, olive quality and the water requirements of the trees.
Monitoring of three campaigns
However, these are preliminary results, as the project involves monitoring three complete table olive production campaigns, as well as two industrial tomato production campaigns on a second plot, also using reclaimed water for irrigation.
This initiative is being developed at the Experimental Centre for New Water Technologies (CENTA), which is part of the Environment and Water Agency of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development.
The conference was closed by the managing director of AMAYA, Javier de Torre, who stressed that ‘CENTA is currently developing various cutting-edge projects linked to the sustainable management of water resources, which are an invaluable resource in the field of water research’.
The conference featured presentations by various experts from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge; the Centre for Public Works Studies and Experimentation (CEDEX); the Water Technology Centre (CETAQUA); the Directorate-General for Agricultural and Livestock Production of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture; the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation; the University of Córdoba; the Centre for Edaphology and Applied Biology of the Segura (EBAS – CSIC); the Experimental Centre for New Water Technologies (CENTA-AMAYA) itself; the Complutense University of Madrid; together with the Association of Irrigators’ Communities of Andalusia (FERAGUA); the Sanitation and Purification Entity of the Region of Murcia (ESAMUR); the Las Cuatro Vegas-Veolia Irrigation Community of Almería; the Tintín Irrigation Community of Córdoba and the Central Board of Users of Bajo Guaro in Málaga.
Consortium
The I-ReWater consortium is made up of 16 leading entities in their sector in the SUDOE area, as the region formed by the Iberian Peninsula, the Principality of Andorra and the South of France is known. There are 4 Portuguese, 9 Spanish, 2 French and 1 Andorran entities.
The Higher Polytechnic School of Engineering of the Terra Campus of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Lugo, Spain) is leading this project, in which the following also participate: HOPEN – Terre de Houblon (Agen, France); Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences – ICVV (Logroño, Spain); National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research – INIAV, IP (Dois Portos, Portugal); Juana de Vega Foundation (Oleiros, Spain); University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro; Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Vila Real, Portugal); Institute for Agrifood Research and Technology of Catalonia – IRTA (Lleida, Spain); University of Córdoba – UCO (Córdoba, Spain), Águas do Norte, S.A. (Vila Real, Portugal), National Institute for Research in Agriculture, Food and the Environment – INRAE (Narbonne, France); Andalusian Environment and Water Agency-AMAYA (Carrión de los Céspedes, Spain); GESTAGUA (Madrid, Spain), Barcelona Metropolitan Area – AMB (Barcelona, Spain), Office of Irrigation of the Department of Climate Action and Rural Agenda of the Government of Catalonia OdR (Tárrega, Spain) and Government of Andorra. The coordinator is Javier J. Cancela Barrio, professor at the USC and researcher with the Projects and Planning Group (PROePLA).
