The Project

The overall objective of SWRIPS project is to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the water usage in the agri-food supply chain (SC) in the EU-Med area under a circular economy approach aimed to saving water and minimize the external use of resources, avoiding further contamination of land and water. 

SWRIPS addresses the thematic “Water Management - Prevent and reduce land and water salinization and pollution due to agri-food activities”. It aims to recover the wastewater produced in the agri-food processing and to reuse the purified water for fertigation purpose while at the same time recovering the substances produced in the process as a matrix for fertilizer, thus putting in place a virtuous cycle that reduces the overall consumption of freshwater, guarantees water availability to farmers, reduce soil drying out and the overall amount of additional fertilizers, is cost effective both for agri-food industries and farmers and, finally, is environmental and human-health friendly.

SWRIPS identifies 3 fundamental innovative technical elements: - an innovative multi-stage purification system based on aerobic granular biomass and nanocomposite and photocatalyst based filters to remove pollutants; - an integrated test system for continuous monitoring of the physical and microbio-chemical parameters of the purified water, consisting of a compact solid-state UV spectroscopy apparatus and visible sensing system for early warning; - the usage of innovative deep-learning algorithms to optimize the whole water/crop cycle and reduce water footprint and environmental impact on water basins, soil and crop itself.