Key water-smart challenges

Water scarcity, limitations to water reuse due to high salinity/nitrates and limitations to water reuse due to low acceptance.

Key water-smart opportunities

Demonstrate a water-smart allocation & negotiation tool to boost reuse at the municipal level, turn a wastewater treatment plant into a biofactory, and recover minerals, nutrients, salts, and energy.

Special Focus

Improve water-smartness in the municipality of Alicante by incrementing water reuse and boosting circular economy opportunities.

Current status and ambition

Alicante and its metropolitan area (1125 km2) are facing water scarcity challenges. Water reuse is still limited, due to excessive salinity and/or nitrates. Currently, 25% of regenerated water in Rincón de León wastewater treatment plant cannot be reused. There is a need to reuse 100% of the water regeneration capacity and to alleviate pressure on agricultural and municipal uses. This requires infrastructure investments, and thus a need to raise awareness among the stakeholders (and potential financing entities) of the benefits of increased water reuse: Alicante Municipality, Alicante Diputacion, and AMA (water operator).

Ambition until the end of the project:
Boost circular economy (CE) in the territory, which is articulated partially through the Biofactories initiative fostered by Veolia for a number of operators in the Spanish territory. This approach will be complemented with the demonstration of innovative solutions for the recovery of and CE-links for
i) energy,
ii) nutrients (nitrate and ammonia),
iii) salt (chlorine generation from Reverse Osmosis brine) and
iv) mineral materials.

Ambition beyond project (upscaling/transferability):
There is interest in scaling up the innovative tools and pilots proposed for the Alicante case study. After the project end, AMA will seek to acquire the additional capacity to operate the successful processes and tools at full-scale. Results will be replicated in/transferred to other operators of Veolia.