Jan 28 2019
The board of the NWO domain Exact and Natural Sciences (ENW) has granted approval for eight project proposals for the Joint Programming Initiative “Water challenges for a changing world” (Water JPI).
The Joint Programming Initiative focuses on the grand challenge of facilitating sustainable water systems for a sustainable economy in Europe and across. Of them, two projects headed by scientists from the University of Twente were approved.
Het project iAqueduct is being headed by Bob Su who is a full professor in Spatial Hydrology and Water Resources Management at the faculty of ITC. RECOTWATDIG is being headed by Gerrit Brem and Artur Pozarlik of the Department of Thermal Engineering at the ET Faculty.
iAqueduct—An Integrative Information Aqueduct to Close the Gaps Between Global Satellite Observation of Water Cycle and Local Sustainable Management of Water Resources
An integrative information aqueduct (iAqueduct) has been put forward to bridge the gaps between global satellite observation of water cycle and local requirements of information for sustainable management of water resources. Several satellite missions have been developed in the last few decades to observe the global water cycle, specifically the variables associated with evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and precipitation usually at (tens of) kilometer scales of spatial resolution.
Although these data are highly effective for the characterization of water cycle variation on regional to global scale, they are not appropriate for sustainable management of water resource, which always requires more comprehensive information on local (for example, a TDR for soil moisture or a piezometer for groundwater level, or in terms of information offered by an in-situ sensor) and field scale.
The 2018 summer European drought will be used as a solid retrospective application to show the benefits of using detailed water cycle information for water management together with local water authorities, for example, the Vechtstromen in the Twente area.
From Satellite Data to Fine-Scale Information
In order to make effective use of existing knowledge at various scales, the following questions have to be answered:
- How to rationalize the global water cycle products to local scale?
- How to change the coarse resolution data into fine-scale water information at the management scale for vegetation, soil processes, and water?
- And how to employ such fine-scale water information to advance the management of soil and water resources?
Combining Data
The goal of the visualized iAqueduct is to realize these objectives by combining Copernicus satellite data (intermediate resolution) with high-resolution Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and in-situ observations to create scaling functions for soil moisture, soil properties, and evapotranspiration at meter scales. iAqueduct will incorporate the different components from the global water cycle observation to local soil and water states in an open-source water information system and check and illustrate their utility on pan-European scale at an array of carefully chosen research sites for sustainable management of water resources.
iAqueduct improves the actions developed under the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) by managing a set of European research groups and sites enabling the scaling up to pan-European level under the guidance of the COST action Harmonization of UAS techniques for agricultural and natural ecosystems monitoring (HARMONIOUS), which involves the participation of 70 institutions from 32 countries.
RECOWATDIG—Sustainable Technology for the Staged Recovery of an Agricultural Water from High-Moisture Fermentation Products
The objective of the project is to achieve a technical design of a modular and transportable installation that enables the staged recovery of agricultural water from the drying of high-moisture fermentation products.
RECOWATDIG involves a new, transdisciplinary approach, by making currently neglected water resources accessible, that is, water evaporated at the time of drying of high-moisture solid fermentation products. It is intended to attain high synergy by combining water recovery with enhanced heat balance of the drying process and extra utilization of the latent heat that could be recovered during water condensation.
Smart Grid Ready
Upon applying the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), the capability for synergy is improved further because of the positive effects with regards to sanitization and dewaterability. Water purification from two separately obtained streams is attained by using various kinds of membrane processes that optimize electricity utilization as well as CAPEX and maintenance cost. The electricity utilization is made better by accumulation and storage of pure water, enabling the costs to be reduced by using electricity during off-peak hours. This renders the proposed technology “smart grid ready.”
Recycling
The reuse of the resulting concentrate is an added advantage to the proposed technology of water recovery from digestate. The resulting concentrate will be recycled as a technological liquid to the wastewater processing, which improves the hydration of the sludge. The use of concentrate makes this a waste-free technology (zero liquid discharge). The proposed installation will enable the digestate to be converted into a marketable and valuable product.
The project consortium comprises academics from different fields, technology developer, and a key user. This ensures the optimization of the practicality of the proposed solutions, which constitute the vital factor in the commercialization of the developed technology in the future.