The Mediterranean library of knowledge
Explore the ENI CBC Med Programme's library of deliverables: a comprehensive digital repository of diverse resources tailored for the Mediterranean region. Discover in-depth studies, innovative strategies, and practical tools spanning tools addressing key environmental, economic, and social issues. The library is your go-to source to find valuable knowledge to inspire new collaborative projects driving fair, sustainable and inclusive development across the Mediterranean.
FFN-ii: Field Data Collection and Digitalization of All Sites
The objective of this activity was to collect, study and deliver the field data required for the establishment and operation of the two Location Aware (LA) prototypes, namely the OliveFlyNet for Olive fruit fly and the MedFlyNet for Mediterranean fruit fly, in the 8 wide-area sites (Olive: AUA, UCO, LARI, IO, Peaches: UNIMOL, CRRHAB, Citrus: AUA). This is the last updated deliverable. In the sites, a revision of the field elements has been performed with ground truth to verify the digitized field data. The maps have been updated and produced accordingly. The use of mobile GIS for the collection of field data is also described.
FFN-ii: Training on Location Aware System (LAS) Advances
The training meeting on Location Aware System (LAS) advances took place in Mabrouka Society in Khlidia-Ben Arous, Tunisia on May 18, 2023. The last day of the project's 3rd consortium meeting took place in Tunisia, by the Olive Tree Institute and the Regional Research Centre on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture (CRRHAB), and within the framework of the FruitFlyNet-ii project. Participants in the training meeting were the partners’ personnel and the hosting partner was the CCRHAB research team.
Eleven e-traps baited with Ceratitis capitata male attractant were set up gradually, along with conventional delta ones in the peach experimental sites belonging to Mabrouka society in Khlidia-Ben Arous. Tests on the transmission of data from the field to the server have been carried out successfully but with some failures. The research team will continue working to improve the quality of the devices.
FNN-ii: Training in MedFlyNet
The training Meeting on MedFlyNet took place in Campobasso on the 25th - 26th July 2022 within the framework of the FruitFlyNet-ii project. This was an in-person meeting, preceded by a one-day online meeting, held on 24th February 2022. Participated to the meeting the partners AUA, UCO and CRRHAB.
The meeting was carried at the premises of the University of Molise, organizing partner. The main objective was to provide a detailed technical description of the MedFlyNet prototype, for both the e-trap and basic e-services, including practical training and field demonstration. In more details, the meeting was organized in 4 sessions: session A on Medfly e-trap, session B: In-field training; session C: MedFlyNet digitalization and monitor module; session D: MedFlyNet DSS.
FFN-ii: Training in OliveFlyNet
The Training Meeting in OliveFlyNet took place in Athens, Greece on the 15th - 17th June 2022 within the framework of the FruitFlyNet-ii project. This was an in-person meeting, preceded by a one-day online meeting, organized by the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) and held on 24th February 2022. Participated to the meeting the technical teams of partners UCO UNIMOL, LARI, and IO.
The meeting was carried at the premises of the Agricultural University of Athens (organizing partner). The main objective was to provide a detailed technical description of the OliveFlyNet prototype, for both the e-trap and e-services, including practical training and field demonstration in the experimental site of AUA located in Koropi, Athens, Greece. The 3 days meeting was organized in 5 sessions: session A on OliveFly e-trap prototype, session B on OliveFlyNet Monitor Module; session C on OliveFlyNet Mobile GIS Module, session D on OliveFlyNet assisted e-services, and finally, in the last day session E on In-field demonstration.
FFN-ii: Location Aware System Deployment in the two Experimental Sites
The objective of this output is to provide information about the various tasks that took place during the 2nd cultivation period (Semesters V-VI) in the two experimental sites of the project aiming to verify the good performance of the e-traps, as well as to test the new functionalities and ensure the good operation of the e-services in the large-area sites. To accomplish the full deployment of the Location Aware (LA) products, the olive and Med e-traps were tested in both sites to satisfy all the evaluation criteria set for the full operation. Noteworthy, the OliveFlyNet was tested in Greece by the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) and the MedFlyNet in Italy by the University of Molise (UNIMOL). The results for both types of the e-traps tested in the two experimental fields showed very good performance in terms of battery charge level and signal reception.
The e-services of adults’ population distribution map, infestation risk map and spray density map creation were tested by AUA in its experimental site to validate its functionalities in the new environment. A new e-service was developed and tested regarding the automatic digitalization of trees, that is an e-service which facilitates the implementation of the system. An additional e-service which gives the ability to the system to identify the optimum position for placing each trap in each area with olive groves was developed and tested too, so that to rationalize the approaches used. The two new e-services were implemented successfully whereas the updated software was able to produce all the different kind of maps required for the full implementation of the LA e-services.
Finally, a detection and count machine learning test for the case med fruit fly pest was also studied by UNIMOL. Tests related to the automatic recognition of medfly catches in the e-trap were also conducted and showed a very food response.
FFN-ii: Project Demonstrations
FrutFlyNet-ii project deployed, optimized, operated, and demonstrated the two Location Aware (LA) prototypes, namely the OliveFlyNet for Olive fruit fly and the MedFlyNet for Mediterranean fruit fly, in the 8 wide-area sites (Olive: AUA, UCO, UNIMOL, LARI, IO, Peaches: UNIMOL, CRRHAB, Citrus: AUA. One of the most important task of the project was to perform a number of demonstration events (on average two demos per site). These were as follows: 3 demos were realized by AUA (Greece), 2 by UCO, (Spain), 2 by UNIMOL (Italy), 5 by LARI (Lebanon), 2 by IO (Tunisia) and 1 by CRRHAB (Tunisia). Noteworthy, that some of the demos of the partners AUA, LARI and IO were closely related with the Living Labs activities on e-trap innovations (LL1) and on e-services advances (LL2). Skill development evaluations via training during each demonstration were provided. Presentations, issues faced, suggestions collected from the stakeholders’ feedback, questionnaires, instruction guides, participants' lists, were also performed. Questionnaires' results about the suitability of LAS and its products obtained from the farmers/producers who were participated in the activities and used the system provided a fine Source of Verification (SoV) for the project outputs acceptability. Questioners, distributed at the end of the lifespan of the project reported positive, negative, neutral opinions, criticism, and possible adaptations. However, their feedback is generally more than encouraging.
AQUACYCLE My Autobiography - Part 2 Exceeding on expectations
The manuscript “AQUACYCLE My Autobiography” brings an account of the project’s journey through the ‘eyes’ of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system.
It is foremost intended to share the project’s aims and objectives and the progress towards achieving these objectives in an easy-to-understand manner. It is hoped that readers, including society at large will thus gain access into the functioning and purpose of the components that make up the treatment system: an anaerobic digester, one or more constructed wetlands and a solar raceway pond reactor.
Along the project’s journey, AQUACYCLE meets up not only with his ‘creators’, i.e. the research teams in the ENI CBC Med funded project but also with water stakeholders, including farmers from around the Mediterranean Region who are alerting to the dire water situation they are facing and how junior high school students amaze their teachers with their intimate knowledge also of EU regulations concerning treated wastewater reuse and more.
This second tome, published in October 2023 brings the sequel to My Autobiography: Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance, published in February 2022. The latter collects the chapters prior to the construction of a first pilot demonstration unit of the treatment system in Spain, hence the title ‘Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance’.
In this sequel, the reader is informed how the project reached all of its originally foreseen objectives ... and much more ! ... hence the title ‘Exceeding on expectations’.
AQUACYCLE My Autobiography - Part 1 Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance
The manuscript “AQUACYCLE My Autobiography” brings an account of the project’s journey through the ‘eyes’ of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system.
It is foremost intended to share the project’s aims and objectives and the progress towards achieving these objectives in an easy-to-understand manner. It is hoped that readers, including society at large will thus gain access into the functioning and purpose of the components that make up the treatment system: an anaerobic digester, one or more constructed wetlands and a solar raceway pond reactor.
Along the project’s journey, AQUACYCLE meets up not only with his ‘creators’, i.e. the research teams in the ENI CBC Med funded project but also with water stakeholders, including farmers from around the Mediterranean Region who are alerting to the dire water situation they are facing.
This first tome, published in February 2022 collects the chapters prior to the construction of a first pilot demonstration unit of the treatment system in Spain, hence the title ‘Anxiously waiting to make my physical appearance’.
AQUACYCLE Capitalization Plan
The AQUACYCLE Capitalization Plan takes stock of the ENI CBC Med funded project’s achievements from two complementary perspectives.
The first chapter collects the Project Legacies – which have been aggregated under no less than 10 different headers – together with the targeted recipients and informs on how public access to these legacies will be ensured beyond the project lifetime. Consequently, further details are presented on each of these respective project legacies.
The second chapter informs about the project’s Capacity Building Achievements, the recipients and the quantified targets reached in terms of the number of Certified APOC users, i.e. the number of persons who received training of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, abbreviated to APOC system; the number of tertiary degree awards to women in Tunisia for their research related to the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, and a multitude of women researchers who have been highly instrumental in the successful outcomes of the project’s research activities and for making the outcomes accessible to a wider public, including society at large.
The final, third chapter reiterates on the Project Key Performance Indicators, which sustains the subtitle of the second volume of AQUACYCLE My Autobiography: Exceeding on Expectations.
AQUACYCLE In-depth analysis of local water and sanitation governance framework
The present document brings the analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the local Governance Framework in the three countries where pilot demonstration units of the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system have been constructed, i.e. Lebanon, Spain and Tunisia.
The first chapter places the scope of the present SWOT analysis in the context of the overall aim and the specific objectives of ‘Preparing for participatory decision-making’.
Chapter 2 elaborates briefly on the rationale for the SWOT analysis to be based on a desk review of available reports and assessment studies and interviews with representatives of the public authorities involved at the national, regional and local level. This is followed by a detailed description of the roles and involvement of the main stakeholders’ groups in Chapter 3, while Chapter 4 brings an overview of the regulatory framework for sanitation, wastewater treatment and reuse in agriculture in the respective countries. Chapter 5 informs on the semi-structured questionnaire that was elaborated for the purpose of interviewing the main stakeholders in each country and reports on the outcomes of the 15 stakeholder interviews that were conducted.
Chapter 6 presents the outcomes of the SWOT analysis of the eco-innovative wastewater treatment technology brought by AQUACYCLE, (for technical details on the technology see Output APOC technical guide). In turn, these outcomes provided a solid basis for the elaboration in Chapter 7 of forward looking strategies for the Mediterranean Region as a whole and for the targeted case study countries in particular. Finally, overall conclusions and recommendations are provided in Chapter 8.
AQUACYCLE Technical guide on project's eco-innovative wastewater treatment system
This technical guide has been designed to provide guidance to staff of public and private entities needing info on the project’s eco-innovative wastewater treatment system (abbreviated to APOC system) design, operation and maintenance.
The acronym APOC stands for “Anaerobic digestion”, “Photocatalytic Oxidation” and “Constructed wetland”, the three components of the eco-innovative wastewater treatment system promoted by the AQUACYCLE project. Anaerobic treatment and constructed wetlands are two mature and commercialized technologies with wide applications in the wastewater treatment market, that are combined with a novel solar disinfection/photocatalytic oxidation process towards the treatment of municipal wastewater at a level that satisfies the most stringent standards for reuse. The distinctive features of APOC technology make it eco-friendly, efficient and cost-effective as it is based on natural systems, it uses less chemicals, runs on renewable energy (solar irradiation), produces biogas, fertiliser and a clean water for reuse in agriculture, in domestic, industrial or other applications, and the constructed wetland thrives as a habitant, an ecological tourist attraction aside from being a climate change mitigation measure.
This guide has been prepared by a cross-border multidisciplinary scientific interaction. Specifically, AQUACYCLE partners which hold expertise in the three different components of the APOC system have provided the necessary technical information and data sheets for the scope of this manual.
AQUACYCLE Pilot Demonstration Units of an Eco-Innovative Wastewater Treatment System
Three pilot demonstration units of AQUACYCLE’s low-cost, eco-innovative wastewater treatment system, abbreviated to APOC system, have been constructed at the following locations: 1) a site owned by the real estate company SANABEL in Deddeh, south of Tripoli in North Lebanon; (2) at the existing anaerobic wastewater treatment facility of Blanca in the Murcia Region of Spain; and (3) at the existing wastewater treatment facility of Bent Saidane in the Zaghouan Governorate of Tunisia. The three sites have in common that they represent small to medium sized communities whose livelihoods depend primarily on agriculture.
The present Output explains the entire construction process from contract award to commissioning, including plant performance. The details of the construction are presented to provide the next developers of other APOC facilities with a visual guide to help them replicate the APOC eco-innovative system for municipal wastewater treatment and reuse in small to medium-size communities.
This activity has been split into three parts, one for each demo site, as there are differences between the designs. It will enrich knowledge even more as it can help to compare the different variants of APOC systems.