AQUACYCLE 5th Project Meeting

The 5^th project meeting of the AQUACYCLE Partnership with the motto: Preparing for AQUACYCLE’s physical appearance in Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia & Democratizing spatial decision making in the water and sanitation sector, was organized as an online meeting on October 6, 2021.

The meeting foremost served to review the status concerning the foreseen pilot demonstration units of AQUACYCLE’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system and the planning of the organization of the Second Series of Stakeholder Workshop in Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia.

The online presentations by the respective teams informed that:

• In Spain, the construction of two constructed wetlands and of a raceway pond reactor are progressing on schedule. These will be treating the effluent from the existing anaerobic digester at the Blanca wastewater treatment facility.
• In Tunisia, the tender for the pilot demonstration unit to be constructed at Bent Saidane in the Zaghouan Governorate, was drawn up in three lots, respectively covering its detailed design, construction and operationalization. The award of tender is currently pending the formal approval by Ministerial Committee for Public Procurement in Tunisia.
• In Lebanon, the detailed design specifications, including the Bill of Quantities have been drawn up. The launch of this tender is pending the resolving of a financial issue faced by the Lebanese University caused by an earlier strong devaluation of the Lebanese pound.

The meeting noted that the environmental monitoring and validation of the efficiency of the wastewater treatment system is foreseen to take place over a period of twelve months, i.e. over one year. To ensure that this time span will be available, the meeting reached the consensus that a request for an extension of the project by six months should allow for this activity to be conducted as originally planned.

The meeting also noted that all preparatory activities for the employment of Participatory GIS in the forthcoming Second Series of Stakeholder Workshops have been completed. Thus, the partners in Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia have been invited to proceed to the selection of an appropriate venue and to inform about the foreseen date of the event.  The Second Series of Stakeholder Workshop foresee the participation of the local communities around the 3 pilot demonstration sites towards the drawing up of reuse actions plans of the treated effluent.