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The project LIFE Fitting “Demonstration of an innovative PLAN-DO toolbox for a safer, resource efficient and fit-for-purpose wastewater treatment” (see project leaflet here) is co-funded by the European Commission under the 2022 call of LIFE Environment programme.

LIFE Fitting involves three partners – LNEC, Universidade Católica do Porto and TRATAVE S.A. – and is led by LNEC.

Background/Challenges

A higher exigence for urban wastewater treatment towards the control of an increasing number of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including emerging microbial contaminants (antimicrobial resistance-AMR), is expected in the near future, namely after the revision of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD) (EU Action Plan “COM/2021/400 final”). It is therefore important to prepare cost-effective measures for enhancing CEC control in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and protect the aquatic environment, water resources and human health against those contaminants.

There is, more than ever, an urgent need to optimise the WWTPs’ resource efficiency and minimize the effluent impact on the receiving water quality and uses. Under this context, the following needs/challenges will be addressed by the project:

  • Challenge 1 – Reduce pharmaceutical compounds in the treated water.
  • Challenge 2 – Enhance antimicrobial resistance reduction during treatment.
  • Challenge 3 – Promote WWTPs’ discharge limits aligned with WFD “combined approach”, this is, promoting receiving water quality-based limits and fit-for-purpose treated water.
  • Challenge 4 – Promote WWTP effectiveness, reliability, and energy and chemicals efficiency.
  • Challenge 5 – Promote water circularity through safer (in)direct water reuse.
  • Challenge 6 – Promote strategic asset management of urban WWTPs driven by long-term objectives to prioritize the investments and the operations on the short, medium and long runs.

These challenges call for multipurpose integrated tools able to support water utilities (and indirectly, environmental agencies, regulators and policy makers) on planning and implementing environmental-economically feasible strategies of wastewater treatment adjustment towards receiving water quality-based limits.

Objectives

LIFE Fitting aims to demonstrate at full-scale the application of an innovative PLAN-DO toolbox for enabling a smart discharge driven-operation, monitoring and strategic planning of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to better cope with climate uncertainty and treated water quality challenges. The 5 tool-based toolbox will support the development of strategies balancing a resource-efficient wastewater treatment with a safer and fit-for-purpose treatment, adjustable to the receiving water uses and quality requirements towards regulated and emerging contaminants, including antimicrobial resistance.

The specific objectives established for LIFE Fitting translate the general objective above in a clear and measurable way, every specific objective having its key performance indicator, KPI.