SWIM IMPROWARE News - Innovative Means to Protect Water Resources in the Mediterranean Coastal Areas through Re-injection of Treated Water
The project aims to demonstrate and promote environmentally sustainable water management policies and practices in Egypt and Tunisia, with focus on wastewater treatment activities directed to produce water of appropriate quality levels for its successive re-injection into coastal aquifers
IMPROWARE activities in the months October-December 2013 mainly focused on the design and tendering process preparation for building of the constructed wetland in Nobarya – Egypt and on the upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant of Korba – Tunisia. Moreover, a set of technical surveys to gather additional key information about the sites and activities to enhance the participation of local stakeholders in the project’s activities were organized. Finally, the preparation of IMPROWARE e-learning programme was finalised and lessons are likely to start in February-March 2014:
IMPROWARE Technical Task Force and Steering Committee Meetings
The meetings of the Technical Task Force, to assess the state of management and financial issues of the project, and of the Steering Committee, to ensure its strategic decision-making, have been held in Tunis respectively on 22 and 23 October 2013.
Taking advantage of this occasion, the Partners and Stakeholders of IMPROWARE in Tunisia have been invited to participate in a Technical Seminar during which the project’s activities in Egypt and Tunisia have been presented by the Technical Task Force Members, stimulating an insightful and interesting exchange of experiences and information.
Demonstration activities in Nobariya - Egypt
- Design and building of the constructed wetland
The project design has been completed in December 2013.
The constructed wetland (CW), which pending the approval of the partners involved will be built in an area owned by the Municipal Authority of Nobariya, will have the following specifications:
- 2 lines which can operate both in series and in parallel
- A horizontal sub-surface
- The area of each basin will be 331.09 m2
- The expected flow rate will be about 160 m3/day
- The vegetation to be used will probably be the Phragmites australis, which grows fast and survives during several seasons of the year. Other species that could be considered are: Pontederia cordata(pickerelweed) that is aesthetically pleasant, Iris pseucacorus (paleyellow iris), an ornamental plant, and Cyperus papyrus (papyrus), one of the most representative plants for the history and culture of Egypt.
The possibility of reusing the treated water from the CW for irrigation purposes is currently evaluated.
Following the publication in December 2013 of tender documents for the CW realization, the received offers will be evaluated in January 2014.
- Stakeholder’s workshop
A dedicated stakeholders’ workshop on water management in Egypt was organized in Cairo on 22 December 2012. The objectives of this Focus Group were to:
1) Disseminate information on IMPROWARE and SWIM activities in Egypt.
2) Discuss the state of the art of Sustainable Water Integrated Management in Egypt.
3) Raise awareness on water savings and creating more trust on reclaimed water in the local public opinion in Nobariya through dedicated campaigns.
4) Discuss the themes of a project’s communication campaign where the empowerment and the trust building towards water management Institutions could find adequate room.
- Investigations – technical missions
A scouting in the Nobariya area has been carried out on 13-15 November 2013. The survey allowed acquiring a comprehensive overview of the site features. All partners agreed on the area in which the technical survey and investigations related to the hydrological setting should be done. In particular, all the in-situ investigations, together with the ground transverse electromagnetic (TEM) and magnetic resonance sounding (MRS) will be performed in a priority zone of about 7 km2. In a secondary zone only a G-TEM transect and, possibly, a test by MRS will be carried out.
A first geophysical campaign has been already conducted in the main area on 5 – 19 December 2013 and included120 G-TEM measurements.
Moreover, on January 7th 2014 the second geophysical campaign has started during which MRS data has being measured in the same study area as for G-TEM. The results of all geophysical data will be used as an input to design the hydrological model. A three-dimensional finite-element model will be used to simulate the evolution of the groundwater level and quality for a number of scenarios of aquifer recharge.
Demonstration activities in Korba, Tunisia
- Upgrade of Waste Water Treatment Plant
Improving the quality of water treated in the plant is the first priority of the pilot project, as agreed with National stakeholders, and different alternatives have been considered to ameliorate the effluent of maturation ponds.
The design of baffles in the maturation ponds in order to improve the distribution of residence time has started in October 2013 and preliminary results of the numerical study for the optimal positioning of baffles have been shown during the Technical Seminar held in Tunis on 22 October 2013. The study has been carried out with two different dispersion coefficients (0,03 and 0,15) while the flow rate to the ponds was set at 6000 m3/day.
The study showed that:
- in pond 1 the two proposed baffles’ positions give very similar results and a significant improvement with respect to the present situation;
- in pond 2, the 1st proposed baffles’ positioning gives better results than the 2ndand therefore will be adopted.
The up-grade of the recharge system and the improvements of the maturation ponds effluent in Korba also require:
- An up-grade of the pumping system;
- The construction of a new infiltration basin and its connection to the buffer tank.
- 1st Focus group
The first focus group with local stakeholders from the demonstration site of Korba was organized in Tunis on 3 October 2013. The objective was to collect information on the point of view of Stakeholders about two main issues:
1) The Governance of the Water Cycle in Korba: This was identified as a key topic to plan the successive steps of the participatory process.
2) The appropriate communication strategy to implement: This topic has been examined in depth, in order to develop a Communication Plan of IMPROWARE in Tunisia
The focus group has also been a chance to test and verify the actual interest of stakeholders in following the whole participatory process that will proceed in parallel with the implementation of the demonstration activities.
- 2nd Focus Group
The second Focus group was organized in Tunis on 27 December 2013 and aimed to identify solutions to improve transparency concerning the treatment of public water.
In particular, the objectives of the Focus Group were to:
1) Disseminate information on IMPROWARE and SWIM activities in Tunisia.
2) Discuss the state of the art of Sustainable Water Integrated Management in Tunisia.
Facilitate the interaction between ONAS (the National Sanitation Utility) representatives, Tunisia line governmental agencies and local NGOs.
- Adaptive Response
The Tunisian workshops opened the pathway to deal with Water Quality in Korba and allowed to understand if changes are needed and which can be adaptive responses to emerging problems, in order to improve the project results.
Following some suggestions from the stakeholders in Korba, emphasizing the need of a better perception of the quality of treated water, ONAS expressed its readiness to work with Governmental and Regional bodies, in order to give full transparency.
The solution proposed by IMPROWARE includes that a sampling point will be set-up in the pipe transporting water from the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) to the recharge system. The sampling point will be used for monitoring activities e.g. with: i) an automatic sampler for monitoring the physical and chemical parameters and ii) a sampling point suitable for monitoring microbiological quality. The sampling point will be realized through a tap if directly applied on the pipe or a small tank. A solution to be discussed further between the parties has been that a third party (NGO or others) could have access to this pipe (or small tank). Certainly, on this delicate point, there will be room for further discussions between ONAS, DGRE (the General Directorate of Water Resources) and all the project’s stakeholders in the next meetings.
Activities relevant to both beneficiary countries, Egypt and Tunisia.
- Technical Surveys in the two Demonstration sites
Available information on the evolution of groundwater use, pumping rates, piezometric level, water quality in the two target sites has been collected.
Following the idea that a complete archive of data is the easiest way to share information with all partners and communities, a simply but complete GIS archive has been built whit some links to external reference (table, image, graphs, etc.). This choice seemed the best way to implement a GIS framework completed by all the features useful for a productive, efficient and reliable shared experience. Another interesting way to share information is by data available in specific file formats such as KMZ/KML.
From the GIS model maps of geological settings, piezometric level variations and water quality variations were built. These maps summarise the evolution of the most important physical aspects through the years on the target sites.
Moreover, the survey has focused on investigating the effects of recharging the aquifer at Korba (Tunisia) by treated wastewater through infiltration ponds and delineate some preliminary insights from the Korba experience to be used in Wadi El-Nutrun (Egypt). Collected data has shown that water quality is the most important parameter for the treated wastewater and affects the effective reusability of water for aquifer recharging.
- Participative processes
As mentioned above separately for Egypt and Tunisia, a set of dedicated workshops were held in the two countries to promote the active participation of local stakeholders in the project’s activities and also to assess information and communication needs at institutional and CSO (Civil Society Organisations) levels.
More than 80 stakeholders participated in the workshops organised between October and December 2013.
- Participatory Communication Strategy
The project promotes the participatory planning of a communication campaign through the involvement of the governmental and CSO stakeholders on two main pillars:
i. Raising awareness on water saving in the local public opinion
ii. Targeted campaign aimed to empower and build trust toward water management Institutions.
Between October and December 2013, IMPROWARE produced the stakeholders’ analysis to identify and assess the campaign target group and multipliers effects. The SWOT analysis of the Communication for Tunisia and Egypt was developed and reviewed in a participative approach during the above mentioned workshops held in Tunisia and Egypt in December. The Communication campaign structure is thus ready and validated by local stakeholders in order to ensure its sustainability through the empowerment of local actors, and it will be implemented in the months to come.
- E-learning Programme
In order to ensure the sustainability of its results, its replicability and its ownerships by the likely largest number of Stakeholders IMPROWARE promotes the transfer of knowledge through proactive capacity building activities.
The IMPROWARE E-Learning platform offers both on-line teaching and tutoring activities to a number of selected stakeholders. Moreover, at the end of the project traditional class-based seminars will be organized for all participants.
The E-Learning programme consists of the following three training modules:
1. Legislative Framework on Water Resources Management
2. Socio-economic Impacts of Wastewater Treatment Using Natural Systems and Related Industrial Application and Development
3. Scientific and Technical Aspects of Water Resources Management
Each course has a duration of 5 weeks.
Each module consists of weekly seminars, with the opportunity of their main tutor to upload online video lessons, so that students can watch them also on a dedicated youtube channel.
The final assignment for the end of each lesson is a self-assessment test. To ensure the effective participation of learners to the seminars, a test will be distributed related to each seminar.
A comprehensive paper that combines students’ experience (i.e. analysis of local case studies compared with the concepts learned - then also useful for policy briefs) to the notions transmitted by the seminars will be encouraged.
The syllabus for modules 2 and 3 and their reading lists are published on the project website: www.improware.eu. January will be dedicated to the students’ preparation based on the provided reading list and lessons will likely start in February-March 2014.
More than 15 students from Tunisia and from Egypt have been identified. During the month of January the tutors of the first e-learning modules will adequately inform the Support Mechanism of SWIM on the shape and the forms the E-Learning will be held in order to create possible synergies. The Online Registration form is published on the project website and open to all potential participants (http://www.improware.eu/e-learning/e-learning-registration-form/).