Project description
New governance, incentives and technologies encourage nutrient recycling
The wide-ranging impact of nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilisers emphasises the urgent need for sustainable practices to reclaim these nutrients from waste streams. This will minimise environmental damage and safeguard ecosystems. Furthermore, with fertiliser prices skyrocketing, solutions must prioritise cleaner soil, air and water, ensuring competitive prices for new fertilisers. The EU-funded NENUPHAR project will addresse these challenges, targeting three common waste streams: manure, sewage sludges and dairy wastewater. It will introduce four key innovations: methodology for estimating nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, new governance models, innovative economic incentives and enabling technologies for nutrient recovery. NENUPHAR's approach will be piloted in various river basins and replicated in insular systems, potentially reclaiming significant nitrogen and phosphorus amounts.
Objective
In a context of ecosystems pressured by nutrient pollution and record-high fertiliser prices, the recovery of nitrogen and phosphorous from waste streams provides a solution to tackle both issues, allowing the supply of new fertilisers (and other products for the food value chain) at a competitive price while enabling cleaner soil, air and water systems. However, to effectively do so, an intensive political, regulatory and governance effort is required to bring all key stakeholders on board.
NENUPHAR was conceived to solve this need by developing new governance and value chain solutions addressing three waste streams widely present and the EU: manure, sewage sludges and dairy wastewaters, addressing four main innovations (i) a methodology for estimating N/P emissions from the application of a fertiliser on soil (ii) new governance models based on a network governance approach (iii) innovative economic and financial incentives for public and private entities; (iv) enabling technologies to treat manure, sludges and dairy wastewaters to recover the nutrient loads.
NENUPHAR approach will be demonstrated in three different regional clusters from geographically diverse river basins: the Ebro river basin (Spain), the Lielupe river basin (Latvia-Lithuania), and the Danube river basin (Hungary-Slovakia branch) and they will be replicated in two insular systems: Cyprus and Bornholm (Denmark). All the regions involved gather a population of 5,4 M people and an area of 109,000 km2.
This demonstration will allow the direct recovery of 273 ton of N and 72 ton of P, while the involved regions shows and overall potential of 38.3 Mton of manure, 252 kton of dry sludges and 4.3 m3 of dairy wastewater that can be treated.
NENUPHAR will employ a multi-stakeholder approach, gathering 21 entities representing farmers and irrigators, waste managers, research experts in circularity and agronomics, social science experts, environmental organisations and public administrations.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processeswastewater treatment processes
- social sciencessociologygovernance
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedairy
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental scienceshydrologydrainage basins
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation ActionsCoordinator
50018 Zaragoza
Spain
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Participants (19)
22500 BINEFAR
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Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
50071 Zaragoza
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50750 PINA DE EBRO
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
50018 ZARAGOZA
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
08500 Vic Barcelona
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LV-1010 Riga
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LV-3001 Jelgava
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1046 Riga
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01108 VILNIUS
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LT-44248 Kaunas
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1093 Budapest
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9012 GYOR
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949 76 Nitra
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Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
951 78 KOLINANY
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70599 Stuttgart
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3700 Ronne
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1417 Nicosia
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54655 Thessaloniki
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
1000 Bruxelles / Brussel
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Partners (1)
Partner organisations contribute to the implementation of the action, but do not sign the Grant Agreement.
9026 Gyor
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