In the era of climate change, the transition of the agricultural sector is a challenge as urgent as it is complex, as it contemplates not only the containment of the emissions involved in the various processes that affect the sector (both directly and indirectly) but also the reduction of its huge water consumption. To accelerate sustainable agriculture, Hera has developed - in collaboration with Enea, the University of Bologna and Irritec - a technologically advanced prototype capable of purifying waste water in order to use it to irrigate and fertilize the cultivated fields, with benefits in terms of greater water availability, nutrient intake, reduction of chemical fertilizers, environmental sustainability and quality of the purification chain.
The innovation is part of the Value CE-IN project, financed by the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Development and Cohesion Fund, presented on the occasion of World Water Day which is celebrated every year on 22 March.
Sustainable agriculture: Hera's project against drought
According to recent studies, in our country the per capita withdrawals of fresh water for agricultural use represent around 50% of the total water requirement. Furthermore, the increasingly frequent phenomena of water shortage due to climate change put more than a third of national agricultural production at serious risk, with damage to the quantity and quality of crops, which can be estimated on average in the order of one billion euros a year. The Hera Group project aims to act as a catalyst for agreements between institutions and companies in the supply chain to implement these practices on a real scale.
In detail, the demonstration prototype was built at the Hera Group purification plant in via Calcinaro in Cesena and was tested on an experimental field with 120 crops, of which 66 peach trees and 54 industrial tomatoes. The results collected after the experimental phase confirm the quality of the purified water for agricultural purposes.
For the moment, the results of industrial research highlight the feasibility of circular economy practices and industrial symbiosis that favor the conversion of purification plants into real biorefineries from which to recover the primary water resource, secondary products with high added value, such as and fertilizers able to guarantee a supply of nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and reduce the use of synthetic chemical fertilisers.
"The Cesena purifier represents a concrete example of circular economy in the water cycle, both in terms of a tangible and safe possibility of reusing the purified wastewater for agricultural purposes, and for the valorisation and recovery of secondary products from the sludge purification,” he said Susanna Zucchelli, Water Director of the Hera Group.
"The results obtained within the project could support the application of the prototype scheme to all purification plants and the dissemination of reuse practices for the benefit of all supply chain stakeholders", underlined the project coordinator Louis Petta, head of the Enea Laboratory of Technologies for the efficient use and management of water and waste.
