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Spain is the European country with the highest water deficit, something that generates a serious social concern. According to the CIS, the present or future lack of water represents a problem to 96.5% of the Spanish population. Spain is also one of the countries with the highest water reuse but still in small quantities: only 5% of the volume of waste water is reused. Water reuse is one the basic mainstays of the water sustainable management. According to recent studies, the water reuse potential in Spain is ca. 10 times higher than the present. These are the main reasons for the TRAGUA (CSD 2006-00044, Treatment and Reuse of Waste water for Sustainable Management) program proposal. The reasons for the small water reuse are diverse, the most important among them being: the lack of treatment protocols for treated waters coming from the EDARs (WWTSs), the lack of clear criteria for choosing technologies within the advanced technologies, the lack of commonly accepted water quality indicators in relation to its later use and the lack of tools to establish the economic and social advantages of the water reuse. These needs are associated to the lack of systematic information about the effect that the non-usual components of the water have on the natural environment. The goal of this Program is to generally achieve the different aspects involved in the reuse of waste waters coming from the EDARs (WWTs). For this purpose, there is a solid multidisciplinary team formed by 24 research groups with a large researching experience attested by: 462 operative and non-operative research projects -91 European projects and leading 26 of them-, 1,829 publications in relevant journals with 14,446 cites in the SCI -3,859 of the cites correspond to the add of the cites of the 5 most relevant publications of each group-, the supervision of 279 PhD thesis, 49 patents and 33 awards. The team will study the application of treatments of waters coming from the EDARs (WWTs) based on advanced technologies, will establish water chemical and biological quality standards and will determine the impact on the natural environment. As for any other activity focused on promoting sustainability, it is also necessary to contemplate the economic sides of the problem. Therefore, the proposals will have the corresponding socio-economic assessment. The Program will be developed through 53 tasks grouped into 5 activities that will produce, among others, 20 technical reports, 12 monitoring reports, 5 evaluation reports, 5 abstract books, 4 use guidelines, 1 simulation model, 25 PhD thesis, some 400 publications in the SCI and some 20 patents. When finished, the Program will provide with an inventory of waste waters for potential reuse, treatment protocols according to their characteristics and the available economically improved technologies, standard methods of chemical, microbiological and toxicological analysis, information about the water impact on the environment and the respective socio-economic analysis. This Program will also result in the start of a postgrade program with at least one regulated master with two itineraries and a doctorate program-, the Program will probably train 150 master students-. In the mean time, the achieved advances will be disclosed to the general and specialized media, promoting the creation of a social environment that will facilitate the suggested modifications within the Program. It will promote the collaboration with the involved administrations and companies and the elaboration of regulations and will provide with scientific-technological knowledge to meet those regulations. A discussion forum will be created, involving all the sectors related to the water reuse, to bring contributions to the Spanish and European Water Technological Platforms. The organization of the 24 groups within the Program will have a pyramidal structure for the coordination and management, and a cross structure for the transference of results. A special committee, supported upon 4 sectorial committees within each working area, will deal with the management and coordination tasks. The sectorial committees will keep a daily contact with the research groups. There will be three cross committees and will be in charge of the diffusion, training, transference and display activities. For the evaluation of the activities carried out within the Program and the quality assessment, there will be internal and external evaluation groups. The external evaluation group will be formed by independent advisors associated to water reuse activities. Some of these advisors will come from abroad, thus contributing to the internationalization of the Program. The experts will report about the degree of fulfilment of the proposed goals and any other needed aspect of the Program. These reports will be public and mandatory for the research groups. |