VMU Scientists Have Launched New Project “NENUPHAR”
Scientists from Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy (VMU AA) Department of Water Engineering and the Institute of Bioeconomy Research (VMU-AA), led by Professor Arvydas Povilaitis, have started a large-scale HORIZON EUROPE CL6-2022-ZEROPOLLUTION-01-02 (Clean environment and zero pollution) project NENUPHAR – “New governance models to enhance nutrient pollution handling and nutrients recycling”. The project brings together representatives from science, business, and non-governmental organizations from 21 European Union countries. The project duration is 4 years.
The excess of nutrients, especially nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P), is one major source of pollution at the EU Level, affecting soil, water, and air and having a severe impact on biodiversity in both inland waters and seas. In Europe, nutrient pollution is generated from intensive agricultural and farming activities and urban areas with high population density. At the same time, fertilizer prices soared during the second half of 2021 and they are reaching unprecedented values.
However, there is a significant untapped potential to recover and reuse N and P from the European food chain. The most promising three wastes to address are animal manure, sewage waste (mainly sludges), and food chain waste, (e.g. slaughterhouse waste). These streams imply a quantity of between 2 and 5 Mt of N and 0.6 Mt of P that are not being recovered, which represent 18-46% of the 11 Mt of mineral N currently applied to EU crops, and 43% of the 1.4 Mt of mineral-based P applied to crops. The recovery of these nutrients would address both the pollution and the high nutrient prices issue.
Therefore, the overall objective of the NENUPHAR project is to demonstrate new circular value chains addressing the recovery of N and P from three key waste streams at the EU level: animal waste, sludges, and wastewater. To this end, the project will develop new holistic governance solutions considering collaboration schemes between stakeholders, processes for N/P recovery, revised regulatory and financial instruments, and tools for stream monitoring and control. These solutions will be demonstrated in the Ebro (Spain), Danube (Hungary and Slovakia), and Lielupė (Latvia and Lithuania) river basins ensuring their European-wide representation. Moreover, two action plans for the replication of the project results and insights will be developed for the islands of Bornholm (Denmark), and Cyprus.
