Post a comment on the text below

One example of this integrated thinking, in a circular economy perspective, is the recent adoption of the Water Reuse Regulation which aims to increase the scale of urban wastewater reuse in agriculture. The EU Regulation sets out to harmonise minimum water quality requirements for safe reuse and groundwater recharge. Currently, very few countries reuse wastewater, except some notable exceptions such as Cyprus which reuses up to 90% of its wastewater (BIO by Deloitte, 2015). Most other references of this practice in the EU remain limited to small-scale experimental projects or local initiatives, which are focused on water reuse for irrigation and managed aquifer recharge. In principle, the total volumes of water that can be reused for irrigation are significant, and may help reduce water stress by up to around 10% in regions where irrigation is an important activity (JRC, 2017). Water reuse also lowers the need of fertilization, because reclaimed water can have a rich nutrient content. The treatment and energy costs for water reuse are rather low, when compared to the costs for infrastructure to bridge the distance from the urban wastewater treatment plants to the irrigated land. The variability of these costs affects the final costs and the attractiveness of reclaimed water to farmers (JRC, 2017). Where water is scarce, the benefit of reuse is to alleviate pressure from agricultural abstraction in surface water and groundwater bodies and from pollution from wastewater discharges. However, to effectively reduce abstraction pressure, reuse will need to act as a substitute for existing abstraction, and not as an additional source of supply for irrigation water (Drewes et al., 2017).  The notion of “getting the economics right” discussed in the context of the Circular Economy Action Plan is fundamental and it is also a shared principle for water policy. Here the example of incentivizing water reuse through pricing policy in Cyprus is again worth a mention. The Mediterranean country is practicing water reuse both for tree cultivations and vegetables and it follows an incentivised water pricing policy to make reclaimed water more appealing to farmers.

You cannot post comments to this consultation because you are not authenticated. Please log in.