DEMEAU Animation: Dare to Drink? Emerging Pollutants in Our Water

Is your drinking water clean? Is it safe to drink? The animation illustrates what emerging pollutants are, how they enter water sources and what role individuals can take in improving the quality of their drinking water. The EU funded project DEMEAU demonstrates innovative technologies that address emerging pollutants.

Pharmaceuticals in Wastewaters and Surface Waters Under Multistressors Situation: Fate, Adverse Effects, Risks and Removal Technologies

The three EU projects funded under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme, Globaqua, Cytothreat & Endetech, together with SCARCE from the Consolider Programme (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), organised a workshop in which pharmaceuticals were regarded from a multidisciplinary perspective. During talks, posters and discussions, experts from different fields had the opportunity for exchange of ideas, knowledge and experiences from their respective fields. Marta Hernandez (cetaqua) presented a poster on WA1 results on Managed Aquifer Recharge.

Project Steering Board Meeting at KWR premises

The second annual Project Steering Board meeting of the FP7 project DEMEAU took place on May 19th and 20th at the premises of KWR Watercycle Research Institute in Nieuwegein, the Netherlands. Project coordinator Theo van den Hoven welcomed the DEMEAU project members with a brief introduction of KWR, its services and activities and the scope and objectives of DEMEAU. Subsequently, the Work Area (WA) leaders had the opportunity to give a summarising overview of their work progress.

Managed Aquifer Recharge to Encounter Emerging Pollutants

On October 2 2014, a DEMEAU utility event took place at the premises of Aigües de Barcelona. It was the first utility event that combined the presentation of research and implementation of Managed Aquifer Recharge with an interactive workshop contributing to work in DEMEAU’s Work Area 5 on Life Cycle Analysis and Life Cycle Costing.

Conditions Influencing Removal of Emerging Pollutants in MAR

DEMEAU’s Work Area 1 conducted a study review on trace organic removal rates in different Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) sites. The review concluded that redox and residence time conditions are part of the key parameters that are able to estimate emerging pollutants removal. MAR enables storage of water in periods of good resource quantity and it offers natural degradation of some pollutants, although some trace organic compounds have shown to be poorly degradable or may be removed only under specific conditions.

In vitro bioassays for the prediction of human health hazards in international regulatory frameworks

In vitro bioassays are promising tools for the assessment of drinking water quality. The technique is based on living cells that show a response once exposed to toxicants. Bioassays are already used in pharmaceutical screening, food safety assessment and chemical regulation but have not entered water regulation yet. Researchers of DEMEAU evaluated the (international) regulatory acceptance of mammalian or bacterial cell-based bioassays for human health assessment.

Drivers and Barriers to Implementation of DEMEAU Technologies

Recently the partners of Work Area (WA) 5 have published a report on perceived drivers and barriers for successful implementation of the four groups of technologies investigated in DEMEAU: Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), Hybrid Ceramic Membrane Filtration (HCMF), Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) and Bioassays. Stakeholders in six case studies were questioned about their view in order to highlight which aspects have enabled or constrained market uptake of the innovative technologies.

Database of European Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) Sites

Different types of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) schemes are widely distributed and applied on various scales in the European countries, but no systematic categorization and data compilation existed up to now. The created European MAR catalogue (MS-Access database) includes a wide range of parameters, e.g. operational information, hydrogeological properties and water quality monitoring for different types of MAR. The database includes currently 270 MAR sites from more than 20 European countries.

Knowledge exchange: DEMEAU & other FP7 projects on LCA in Loeben

DEMEAU partners attended a workshop on methods of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for all EU-FP7 projects in Leoben (AT). LCA experts of 12 research projects exchanged ideas on LCA related topics and defined a common framework for environmental indicators to facilitate the comparability and reliability of outcomes of the environmental assessment.

Immersion Strategy and Applied Innovation

The Catalan Water Partnership aims to enhance the strategical reflexion with all stakeholders in the water sector in Catalunya and wants to foster the further internationalisation and innovation of the sector. DEMEAU will be presented by Ester Vilanova who will talk about the results that have been achieved and that are yet to come.

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