Objective
Overall objectives: This proposal concerns an integrated investigation to provide an EU-wide scientific basis for growing willow coppice for bioenergy production using municipal wastewatersrich in plant nutrient (substituting commercial fertilisers), with a simultaneous sanitarily safe, economically feasible and environmentally acceptable disposal of the wastewaters into the willow plantations leading to elimination of rivers, underground, and coastal water pollution.
The specific objectives are: - To study growth and biomass productivity of short rotation willow coppice for energy use (mainly combustion) grown under irrigation with municipal wastewater. - To determine the most suitable irrigation rates of wastewater aiming at environmentally safe wastewater disposal and maximising biomass production. - To monitor leaching of minerals to deeper soil layers and to assess which irrigation rates are suitable to eliminate underground water pollution. - To follow the uptake of certain minerals into the various plant components as well as their retention in the various soil layers. - To investigate the effect of the willow/wastewater irrigation system on landscape, sanitary implications, pests and diseases. - To evaluate the economy of the system in terms of purification of wastewater and production of biomass on farmland. - Finally, to develop a recycling and environmentally friendly system for purifying wastewater and increasing the efficiency of willow production through substitution of commercial fertilisers with the nutrients from the wastewater.
Methodology: Experimental fields will be established in four European countries (from south to north). The fields will be located in the vicinity of a municipal wastewater treatment plant. In Sweden the experimental field will be located at Roma, on isle Gotland, in France at Villeneuve d'Ascq, in Northern Ireland at Armagh and in Greece at Larisa (central Greece). Each trial covering about 5 hectar will be planted with one variety of willow, and be studied for their growth and biomass productivity under four irrigation treatments with wastewater. These treatments include different wastewater irrigation rates in comparison with pure water irrigation. During the course of the project, growth measurements and biomass productivity data will be taken and the effects of the various treatments on growth and productivity will be assessed. In addition, detailed mineral stem composition determinations will be made and the effect of the various treatments on mineral composition of the harvested stem product will be assessed. The effects of the various treatments on soil and underground waters will be determined during the whole course of the project. Soil and underground water analysis will be correlated with irrigation wastewater mineral composition and rates. A number of wastewater analysis, concerning the most important nutrient elements will be carried out during the whole course of the project. Soil nitrogen profile analysis will be carried out at regular intervals and a very detailed soil analysis will be carried out at the beginning and at the end of the project. The economics of growing willow coppice irrigated with wastewater will be evaluated, and will include both production and value-added-chain apportions.. In addition, the effects of institutional and social-economical factors will be analysed. The consequences of the wastewater treatment on the vicinity of the municipal waste treatment plant environment will be recorded. Studies of certain patogenes will be made.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering waste management waste treatment processes recycling
- engineering and technology environmental engineering water treatment processes wastewater treatment processes
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels biomass energy
- engineering and technology civil engineering water engineering irrigation
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries forestry silviculture coppicing
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Coordinator
26881 SVALOV
Sweden
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