Assessing Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems efficiency to reduce urban runoff water contamination

Due to the current global change, there is a need to look for improved urban water management. Especially in urban areas, where most of the population is concentrated. These high dense areas require improvements in water quantity and quality, and Barcelona city is not an exception. Barcelona City Council installed different green infrastructures called Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems. These installations reduce the extreme runoff events by promoting and facilitating the recharge of the aquifers. The installation of these systems is increasing, but there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of the quality of the water infiltrated in the aquifer and their effects on the state of the groundwater bodies of the city, which can reduce the current quality of groundwater.

The main objective of ASSET-WATER is to evaluate the Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems implemented in the city of Barcelona and provide improvements so that these systems are more efficient and fulfill the purpose of said facilities and advance toward efficient and sustainable use of water, improving the adaptation capacity of the city to the current Climate Change and promoting the use of green infrastructures in their urban plans.

Funding institution: Barcelona City Council (Àrea de Cultura, Educació, Ciència i Comunitat). Premis de Recerca científica "Fons COVID"

Start Date: 26/10/2021 – End Date: 26/10/2022

Project Leader: Marc Teixidó Planes , Laura Scheiber Pagès , Rotman A. Criollo Manjarrez

Funding: Regional Project

https://assetwater.wixsite.com/my-site-2

Nature-based solutions to reduce antibiotics, pathogens, and antimicrobial resistance in aquatic ecosystems

An array of nature-based solutions including conventional and high-end constructed wetlands, river re-naturalization, and restoration of wetlands will cover the continuum from urban sources to coastal biota in estuaries. We propose a comprehensive quantification of the fate of antibiotics, pathogens, and antimicrobial resistance in these systems together with ecotoxicological and human health assessments. Nature-based solutions performance will be analyzed using multivariate modeling techniques to identify parameters with the greatest empirical influence on the attenuation of targeted pollutants.

Start Date: 01/09/2021 – End Date: 30/08/2024

Project Leader: Víctor Matamoros Mercadal

Researchers: Josep Maria Bayona Termens , Mònica Escolà Casas , Enric Vázquez Suñé

Funding: European Project

https://natureproject.eu/

European training network on control prediction and learning in mixing processes

The CoPeRMix network brings together a collection of experts at the European scale from academia and industry, who have all adopted new angles of attack to the problem of mixing according to their needs and fields of application, in order to foster the emergence of a unified viewpoint, through intensive collaboration between different schools of thought and methods. This effort builds up on existing collaborations between several participants, and lectures or courses delivered by some of us in various university curricula in their own institution, and abroad. More precisely, this training network is the emanation of the “Mixing Days” organized by the consortium on a yearly basis (Marseille in 2016, Rennes in 2017, Barcelona in 2018 and Brussels in 2019), which have been the opportunity to conceive and share a new methodology: the lamellar description of mixing.
It consists in viewing a mixture as a set of elongated lamellae and sheets and understanding how they are stretched and dispersed by the stirring flow. This first step provides the necessary information to address the stirring/molecular diffusion coupling, leading to the complete statistical description of the mixing process i.e. the full concentration distribution. This disruptive vision has prompted new numerical (Diffusive Strip Method) and experimental methods. They offer an unprecedented opportunity of accurately describe Stirring protocols which is the ground to understanding and model- ling Mixing and its Impact in a diversity of fields. This lamellar description of mixing provides a consistent and invertible theoretical framework giving us also the opportunity to Learn from mixed scalar fields.

Very promising outcomes are expected as the CoPerMix programme unites leading academic and industrial partners with a broad expertise in the fundamentals and applications of mixing in a very wide range of fields.

Start Date: 01/01/2021 – End Date: 31/12/2025

Project Leader: Marco Dentz , Juan José Hidalgo González

Funding: European Project

https://www.copermix-itn.eu/

A new upscaling approach for multiphase flow, mechanical deformation, and hydrodynamic transport in permeable media

The main objective of the project is to uncover and quantify the mechanisms and laws that govern multiphase flow, mechanical deformation and hydrodynamic transport in permeable media, from the pore to the regional scales. To achieve this goal, HydroPore proposes a multidisciplinary and integrated research strategy that combines a new theoretical upscaling framework with novel experimental protocols and cutting-edge numerical simulation techniques

Start Date: 01/06/2020 – End Date: 31/05/2023

Project Leader: Marco Dentz , Juan José Hidalgo González

Funding: National Project

http://hydropore.es/

PLataforma agregadora de mOdelos para la Gestión óptima de cuencas hidrográfICas (LOGIC)

El Proyecto LOGIC pretende proporcionar unos servicios innovadores para mejorar el programa de monitoreo de las masas de agua, y así hacerlo más eficiente, flexible y robusto. El objetivo de los programas de monitoreo es conocer el estado de las masas de agua. La aportación del IDAEA al proyecto es desarrollar y verificar herramientas de cálculo del transporte reactivo en ríos, de manera que se pueda conocer no solo su estado en el momento y lugar de la toma de muestras, sino también cómo se prevé que la calidad de agua evolucione a lo largo del tiempo y varíe en el espacio. Para ello, se aprovecha la experiencia en transporte reactivo de los investigadores del IDAEA. Una de las singularidades del proyecto es reconocer el intercambio "hiporreico" (agua del río que pasa al acuífero aluvial en un meandro y retorna al río uno o dos meandros aguas abajo). Este intercambio es fundamental para que el rio pueda prestar servicios ambientales y pueda llegar a considerarse en "buen estado".

Convocatoria: Retos-Colaboración 2019 (RTC2019-007484-5)
Partners:
LABAQUA, Coordinación Técnica: Ana Conty.
CETAQUA, Laurent Pouget.
CSIC, Jesús Carrera, adscrito al IDAEA-CSIC

Start Date: 01/06/2020 – End Date: 31/03/2023

Researchers: Jesús Carrera Ramírez

Funding: National Project

GEoREST aims at developing a novel methodology to predict and mitigate induced seismicity.

GEoREST aims at developing a novel methodology to predict and mitigate induced seismicity. Fluid injection related to underground resources has become widespread, causing numerous cases of induced seismicity. If felt, induced seismicity has a negative effect on public perception and may jeopardise wellbore stability and infrastructure, which has led to the cancellation of several projects. Therefore, forecasting injection-induced earthquakes is a big challenge that must be overcome to deploy geo-energies to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and thus mitigate climate change and reduce related health issues.

Start Date: 01/02/2019 – End Date: 31/01/2024

Project Leader: Víctor Vilarrasa Riaño

Researchers: Dario Sciandra , Iman Vaezi Anzeha , Iman Rahimzadeh Kivi , Francesco Parisio , Linus Walter , Sara Hanson-Hedgecock , Aurégan Boyet , Clément Joulin

Funding: European Project

https://www.georest.eu/

European network for chemical elemental analysis by total reflection X-Ray fluorescence

This project aims to coordinate research and building capacity in the field of elemental analysis by total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to develop and assess new tools, protocols, methodologies, and instrumentation for screening and accurate determination of potentially toxic elements, for health and safety reasons, as well as nutrients and beneficial ones for quality control.

Start Date: 01/02/2019 – End Date: 12/03/2023

Researchers: Ignasi Queralt Mitjans

Funding: European Project