The European project AquaNES was launched on 7 June during a meeting of the 30-partner consortium at coordinator FHNW in Basel. AquaNES aims to demonstrate that smart combinations of nature and technology provide inexpensive and sustainable solutions for many water-related issues. KWR is one of the initiators of the project and a member of the coordination team.
From a technical point of view, it is possible to take water from the most polluted sources and refine it into the quality required for the most wide-ranging of uses. If we combine this with natural processes, the costs are much lower and the solutions more sustainable.
AquaNES will confirm this assumption during the next three years through demonstrations at thirteen different locations in Europe. Combinations of natural elements such as soil, wetland filtration and reed beds with techniques such as oxidisation and membrane filtration will be used to refine waste water and rainwater into water for agriculture and horticulture, industry and human consumption. The project will use advanced strategies and techniques for monitoring the water quality.
Waddinxveen is one of the thirteen demonstration sites, where a newly-developed area will be used to store rainwater from roads and roofs underground for later use in horticulture.
In addition to KWR, other AquaNES participants from the Netherlands are Hydrobusiness, BDS, MicroLAN and Pentair.