Medaware - Activities

On Friday, June 27th 2003, the kick-off meeting of the project "Development of tools and guidelines for the promotion of the sustainable urban wastewater treatment and reuse in the agricultural production in the Mediterranean countries - MEDAWARE" took place in Athens. The kick-off meeting was organized by the coordinator of the project, the National Technical University of Athens.

Prof. Maria Loizidou, after greeting all partners and welcoming them in Athens, presented briefly the NTUA and gave some more detailed information on the Unit of Environmental Science and Technology. In addition, ML made a general introduction to the MEDAWARE project by reminding the project's aims and by proposing the establishment of a Steering Committee, in which each participating organization will be represented by one member. This Steering Committee will meet ad hoc and its duty will be to manage the progress of the project and be responsible for the quality of the deliverables. The chairwoman of the Steering Committee will be the project leader, namely Prof. Maria Loizidou. She pointed also out the responsibilities of each partner during the implementation of the project. NTUA will prepare the periodic, interim and final reports, perform a complete financial coordination, be responsible for the organization of the meetings that are planned to take place during the project implementation and prepare all necessary documents for these meetings. On the other hand, the other partners should secure the optimum flow of information, respond promptly to the requests of the project coordinator / Steering Committee, complete the foreseen tasks on time and ensure the high quality of their deliverables.

Then, each participant made a short presentation of his institution and activities and provided a brief description of the current status regarding wastewater treatment and agricultural reuse in his/her country.
The first participant to speak was Prof. Celal Gokcay who presented the Middle East University of Ankara and provided some information on the current status in Turkey regarding wastewater treatment and agricultural reuse. Then, As. Prof. Idil Arslan Alaton provided some supplementary information on the existing situation in Turkey and presented the Istanbul Technical University.
The next to speak was Alfredo Sandovar who presented the Automation, Robotics, Manufacture and Information Technology Center and its activities. Dr. Ruben Irusta gave some more detailed information on the Environmental Analysis and Studies Laboratory and briefly described the existing situation in Spain with regards to wastewater management.
Dr. Ioannis Papadopoulos presented Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus and gave detailed information on the existing situation regarding wastewater treatment and agricultural reuse in Cyprus.
Prof. Munir Al-Rusan gave a short presentation of Jordan University of Science and Technology and afterwards presented the existing situation in Jordan with regards to wastewater treatment and reuse.
Prof. George Ayoub who was the next participant to speak, presented the American University of Beirut and gave some background information for Lebanon and its current condition as far as wastewater management is concerned.
After a short coffee break, Prof. Mohammed Mountadar presented the existing situation in Morocco with regards to water resources and wastewater reuse in agriculture, while afterwards Prof. Omar Assobhei gave some general information about Morocco and the University of Chouaib Doukkali.
The next to speak was Dr. Dimitris Glekas who briefly presented PROSPECT Systems.
Following the aforementioned presentation, Dr. Despo Fatta made a short presentation of the MEDAWARE project emphasizing on the project's importance, especially for the participating countries, and the main problems that will be addressed through MEDAWARE. Dr. Fatta depicted the means that will lead to the solution of the problems and described also briefly the tasks foreseen in the project. She also reminded to the participants the project's timetable.

Then, the representatives of NTUA described in detail each Task of the project. After each presentation discussions took place between the participants regarding the involvement of each partner in each Task and the potential constraints during their implementation.

Mr. Andreas Mentzis presented Task 1: "Determination of Countries Profile". During the discussions it was decided that all data must be delivered to NTUA by middle September and that all reports submitted should have a standard format. DF said that NTUA would prepare a standard format for the submission of the reports by the partners and it will be sent to the partners in few days. It was also decided that each partner should prepare a list of actors in the field of wastewater management in his country and send it to NTUA. IP pointed out that the data collected by each partner should come from official sources in order to ensure deliverables of good quality. MR commented that it should be difficult to collect data from official sources, but he would provide references for all data collected. CG also underlined the difficulty to obtain data. RI asked whether the data should concern only the existing situation in each country or whether it should contain future trends as well. DF suggested concentrating on the existing situation and only commenting on the future trends.

Mr. Mentzis presented also Task 2: "Evaluation of the existing situation related to the operation of urban wastewater treatment plants and the effluent disposal methods with emphasis on the reuse in the agricultural production". IA said that reuse data is not available in Turkey. It was decided, however, that every figure presented in the report should be justified.
Mr. Kostas Moustakas presented Task 3: "Analysis of best practices and success stories". Only NTUA and CARTIF participate in this task. CARTIF will be responsible for the preparation of this report.
Ms. Evi Sgourou presented Task 4: "Development of specifications for innovative urban wastewater treatment technologies and systems". All partners commented that it is too early to speak for this task.
After the lunch break Ms. Irene Skoula presented Task 5: "Development of specifications for urban wastewater utilization" and Task 6: "Development of a methodology and a database for the control and monitoring of the urban wastewater treatment plants." No suggestions were made for these two tasks, as they are going to be implemented at a later stage.
Mr. Moustakas presented Task 7:"Development of a multi-criteria guiding support software tool for the assessment and valuation of safe wastewater agricultural reuse." No further discussions took place.

Finally, As. Prof. Joanne/Catherine Haralambous presented Task 8, which refers to the dissemination activities of the project.

After the presentation of the tasks, a general discussion took place and each participant was asked to express any questions or comments on the project. Prof. Loizidou said that MEDAWARE is a well structured project and that all partners should see to deliver all reports on time in order to strictly follow the project's timetable. She also asked for high-quality deliverables.

At this point, it is underlined that the representative of the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority, Mr. Mohammed Eila, could not attend the kick-off meeting due to the unstable situation in the Gaza Strip. However, Mr. Eila will be the representative of MENA in the steering committee.

The site visits included a visit at a wastewater reuse system in Vitoria (Spain) on Wednesday, July 14th 2004.
Photo Set 1 (1,84 MB)
Photo Set 1 (128 KB)

The second site visit took place in Tenerife on Thursday, July 15th 2004.
Photo Set 1 (1,05 MB)
Photo Set 1 (1,36 MB)

On Friday, July 16th 2004, the first annual meeting of partners of the project "Development of tools and guidelines for the promotion of the sustainable urban wastewater treatment and reuse in the agricultural production in the Mediterranean countries - MEDAWARE" took place in Tenerife.

On January 19th and 20th 2006, the second annual meeting of partners of the project "Development of tools and guidelines for the promotion of the sustainable urban wastewater treatment and reuse in the agricultural production in the Mediterranean countries - MEDAWARE" took place in Beirut.

In the framework of MEDAWARE Project a Field Trip for farmers was organised, activities in relation to wastewater took place. Emphasis was given to medical and socio-economic aspects of the wastewater activities. This day was organized by the Moroccan Association of Limnology.

6. Field Trip for farmers on"The Proper and Safe Use of Treated Wastewater in Agriculture"

In the framework of MEDAWARE Project a Field Trip for farmers on"The Proper and Safe Use of Treated Wastewater in Agriculture" has been organized by the Agricultural Research Institute (ARI). The Field Trip took place at Larnaca District (Kiti Village) on October 19, 2006.
Farmers' associations, Village Authorities and farmers were invited to this Field Trip (the invitation is attached as Appendix A). About 25 people participated in the workshop. The list of participants is presented in Appendix B.
In the first part of the Field Trip which took place at Kiti Village, two presentations were made.
The first presentation was given by Mrs Stalo Anayiotou, covering the following subjects:

Brief presentation of MEDAWARE project
Data and numbers from Cyprus
Guidelines for Wastewater Reuse
Wastewater Treatment Plants in Cyprus

The second presentation was given by Mr Christos Hadjantonis from the Department of Agriculture, who presented the "Code of Practice for treated domestic sewage effluent used for irrigation in Cyprus"
The presentations are attached in Appendix D.
The second part of the Field Trip included:

A visit to Larnaca Urban Wastewater Treatment Plant and
A visit to areas irrigated by the treated wastewater

Farmers found the field trip very interesting because they got additional knowledge from the presentation but mostly because they visited the treatment plant. Most of them had participated in workshops organized in the past by the Agriculture Department, and had already seen crops irrigated be recycled water but they had never visited a treatment plant. The Farmers had a lot of questions related to the operation of the plan and Mr Ventouris was very effective in answering them

Some photos, the invitation for the seminar, the registration form, and a list of participants, are available below for downloading: