Newsletter 1 in PDF: newsletter_1_February_2025
What is TARGET about?
To answer this question, we need to view our current situation.
In the European Southwest (Southwest France, Spain and Portugal), freshwater resources are subject to increasing pressure due to human activity, creating new challenges such as scarcity situations, worsening of water quality, or endangering natural ecosystems as well. If we are to confront this situation, we need a change of paradigm. The adaptation of practices and organisational processes will help us to guarantee the freshwater needed not only for our societies to function, but also for the protection of our natural ecosystems and economic development.
TARGET is all about this. The ten partners that joined together to carry out this mission have decided to find out the common grounds and the methodological elements needed to work, to promote plans towards sustainable water management and scarcity prevention mobilising non-conventional water resources (resources other than fresh water like wastewaters or rainwaters), while taking into account the different problematics and local worries that are present. Thanks to the following partners, TARGET will help in the fight against water scarcity:
- Etablissement Public Interdépartemental de la Dordogne (EPIDOR) (France) (lead partner of the TARGET Interreg Sudoe project).
- Communauté d’agglomération Le Grand Périgueux (France).
- Ayuntamiento de Granollers (Spain).
- Departamento de Ingeniería Civil y Ambiental de la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, (Spain).
- Agencia de Medio Ambiente y Agua de Andalucía (AMAYA) (Spain).
- Departamento de Psicología Social, del Trabajo y Diferencial de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain).
- Departamento de Ciências e Engenharia do Ambiente, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Portugal).
- Município do Barreiro (Portugal).
- ECOFILAE (France).
- Centre d’Etudes et d’Expertise sur les Risques, l’Environnement la Mobilité et l’Aménagement (CEREMA), Direction Territoriale Sud-Ouest (France).
To sum up, TARGET is a method, a mix of tools and recommendations to create a sustainable water management plan. It is a collaborative, international and interdisciplinary project to take care of our water resources. It is the preventive countermeasure against drought situations, ecosystems loss, and economical problems.
Water is used by absolutely everyone, but in order to carry out our work, who are we going to work with? First, we need to collaborate with local public authorities, such as institutions that manage freshwater, rainwater and wastewater. This sector is the one that know the best about the local situation each place is facing. Secondly, we need to work along with regional public authorities, such as planification and management institutions of water policies, like water agencies, regions and public water basin establishments, as we will need a broader take to work in a greater scale.
First face-to-face meeting of the consortium
The first meeting of the team took place in Seville from the 25th to the 26th of June, 2024. During these two days, various technical and coordinative reunions took place regarding different legislative and institutional aspects, as well as a workshop for evaluation through active participation of involved agents.
Thanks to this workshop, a SOAR analysis (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) was applied, resulting in a positive, collaborative approach to improve water management. Key strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and goals for better governance in Spain and Andalusia were identified. There is a strong foundation in scientific knowledge, a chance to adopt a holistic approach to different sectors, an aspiration to enhance water-use efficiency, and a need to implement sustainable agricultural practices.
Together, the TARGET team had the opportunity to visit the Experimental Centre for New Water Technologies (CENTA). The visit to this Centre, which depends on the Andalusian Environment and Water Agency, AMAyA, allowed the members to see first-hand the evolution of these facilities since their inauguration in 1990 as well as the facilities and projects that are currently being developed and, in particular, those linked to solutions for the reuse of wastewater, being the first technical visit foreseen in the project.
Scientific dissemination of the project
TARGET is not only about applied knowledge, but also about creating and sharing developments in any of the fields our partners work in. Up until now, our colleagues have participated in two conferences, where not only they shared with other equals the advances reached, but also gathered information and created connections with other members of the fight against the different aspects of climate change.
In the first conference, three of our partners (EPIDOR, AMAyA and CEREMA) participated in the REUSE EUROMED 2024 “Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Wastewater Reuse” organised in Montpellier, France, on 29-30 October. Our colleague Catherine Franck-Neel (CEREMA) presented a paper on the integration of wastewater reuse in regional water management strategies in France and Spain. This paper, co-authored by Amélie Bresson (EPIDOR), Isabel Martín García (AMAyA) and Karine Maubert-Sbile (CEREMA), is a summary of the first results of the comparative analysis of water governance in France, Spain and Portugal carried out within the framework of the TARGET project. During the two-day conference, TARGET partners shared with other stakeholders from around the Mediterranean, the challenges and possible solutions to address water scarcity using treated wastewater. The main conclusion of this Euro-Mediterranean conference that was the need to implement concerted and planned territorial strategies at appropriate scales. If you wish to learn more about the work presented, you can visit our LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7268241247620771840
The second event, the XVII Conference of Environmental Psychology, took place in Málaga, Spain, from the 3rd until the 6th of February 2025. Our colleague Lucía Poggio (UCM) presented the work ”Mental models of non-conventional waters in the Spanish lay population“, with Lucia Poggio Lagares and Gabriel Sánchez del Corral as authors.
Our colleague Lucía presented the progress obtained in their research regarding acceptability, risk perception, and knowledge of non-conventional waters. In their work, our colleagues found out that there is a generalized lack of knowledge regarding non-conventional waters (NCW) and a need for more science communication tailored to the layman. Most of the people viewed NCW as a risk related to health matters. However, participants viewed water reuse as a positive tool and environmentally friendly.
During the conference’s days, various themes regarding new environmental challenges were discussed, one of them being the use of water resources and decentralized sewage water administration and perception, enriching the knowledge about this field.
What’s next?
From the 25th until the 26th of March, the members of the project will hold the second meeting in Granollers, Spain, who excel in nature-based solutions for the treatment of wastewater and reutilization for different uses, as well as the management of this more than necessary resource.
In this meeting, we will have a conference organized by the city council of Granollers on Water Management in Granollers during Drought: Challenges and Solutions. Additionally, a workshop will be held among our expert partners, associated partners from France, Spain, and Portugal, ranging from the private sector and the public sector, including experts on the field of water. Here everyone will be able to join in interesting discussions, exchange different experiences and perspectives, and enrich TARGET’s point of view.
The latest results of the project regarding demonstration actions will be presented, as 5 criteria based on scientific literature regarding water regeneration were established and a study to identify Nature Based Solution that can improve water quality was carried out. Additionally, results regarding the motorization of water quality parameters, the creation of an alarm protocol system based on machine learning and the development of a low-cost prototype of an oxygen chemical demand estimation device will be presented.
Furthermore, we will conduct two visits to water reuse infrastructures:
The first visit will be to Can Cabanyes, a space dedicated to Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). This 8-hectare space is located to the south of the municipality of Granollers, between the Montmeló road and the right bank of the Congost River. It is not only a beautiful green space to visit and an ecological refuge, but it also provides a more than useful service: water treatment. Wastewater is filtered thanks to the nature-based bioreactive system of microbial communities that happily develop in the plants that inhabit this place.
The second visit will be to the historical city of Sant Cugat, to be more precise to a building that holds an interesting and powerful system regarding water management, a decentralized sewage water system.
Can Cabanyes Water Treatment (NBS)
Credits: Ajuntament de Granollers & Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
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