Control, treatment and reduction of microplastics and emerging pollutants in urban wastewater and the transboundary coastal environment
The objective of the BlueWWater project is to improve the quality of river, transitional and coastal water bodies by controlling, monitoring and reducing emissions of microplastics and emerging pollutants (ECs) to the aquatic environment through the improvement of the efficiency of urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The aim is to promote the sustainable use of water resources and contribute to the implementation of EU regulations.
To this end, the project will develop high-performance automated methodologies to facilitate the monitoring of these pollutants in water bodies in view of compliance with the new proposed revision of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and the Water Framework Directive. The environmental risk of these pollutants will be studied and the efficiency of a selection of WWTPs in both regions with and without tertiary/quaternary treatments will be evaluated. For this purpose, chemical and ecotoxicological tools and hydrodynamic, transport and trophic chain models will be used. An environmental assessment of tertiary/quaternary treatments will also be carried out.
