The Challenge

European faces a sustainability challenge affecting food security, as the availability and accessibility of healthy and nutritious food is deeply affected by climate, societal and economic change. The EU farm-to-fork strategy evidences the need for increasing the resistance and resilience of food production systems in the face of global change, and for providing instruments to farmers to achieve better environmental results and strengthen their position in the supply chain. 

Aquaculture (i.e. fish farming) is an essential element in addressing food and protein demand, as fish has generally a higher nutritional value than meat at a fraction of the carbon footprint

European freshwater aquaculture production has been stagnant since the beginning of the 21st century due to lack of innovation, low diversity, seasonality, regulations and poor economic returns

Source: Our World in Data - 2023

In the world more than the 50% of edible fish comes directly from wild fishing, while the rest comes from fish farming, also called aquaculture. In the last decade, the percentage of aquaculture-produced fish is increasing, which in turn reflects on wild catches.

Farming carnivorous species requires large inputs of wild fish for feed. Some aquaculture systems also reduce wild fish supplies through habitat modification, wild seedstock collection and other ecological impacts. On balance, global aquaculture production still adds to world fish supplies; however, if the growing aquaculture industry is to sustain its contribution to world fish supplies, it must reduce wild fish inputs in feed and adopt more ecologically sound management practices.

To improve the European capacity for freshwater aquaculture it is therefore desirable to:

 

a) increase the uptake of innovative approaches for efficient and sustainable production in urban and peri-urban areas, where agricultural land and water resources are less available, bringing the approach closer to final consumers;

 

b) engage policy and regulatory stakeholders to create more support for freshwater aquaculture farmers;

 

c) increase the resilience of aquaculture in the face of climate change and increased water stress

Our Vision

We wish to increase the capacity of European cities for freshwater aquaculture produced locally (KM 0), with no impact on natural habitats, no dependence from natural freshwater availability, and high resiliency to climate change.

 

We imagine that in the near future every major European town will have farm fish and grow vegetables in highly efficient aquaponics farms embedded within the infrastructure of their wastewater treatment plants.

European cities will have highly efficient aquaponic systems embedded within their wastewater treatment plants

This advanced form of urban aquaponics would shorten the value chain of fish farming, improve the usage of waste resources, and allow citizens to reconnect with and participate in their food production  

Our Approach

AWARE – Aquaponics from WAstewater REclamation is building the first European aquaponic farm existing within a wastewater treatment plan. The pilot will be launched in the community of Castellana, in the region of Apulia (Italy), in 2024.

There are several different aspects we are taking into account in our approach:

  • System engineering and circularity: the wastewater treatment portion of the system implements Advanced Tertiary Treatment technologies which produce reclaimed water of quality comparable to drinking water. This water is the input of the aquaponics farm,  which designed for recirculation and with an intelligent use of biofiltration is virtually a 0 waste system. The farm uses space, heat and resources from the wastewater treatment plant, therefore easing the impact on natural habitats.

The pilot will be launched in Castellana (Apulia, Italy) in 2024

  • Quality control and animal welfare: quality is assessed at every step of food production, in the system and in the plant / fish biomass. The farm is equipped with IoT (Internet of Things) sensors to monitor crucial parameters in quasi-real team, and data are secured on a blockchain. We make sure of the fish welfare through the observation of behavioural cues and physiological aspects

     

  • Regulatory, social and economic constraints: there is no European or national regulation permitting to use reclaimed water for fish farming.  Similarly there is no indication of social acceptance nor existing reference business model. We investigate this aspects to make sure that, once the technology is demonstrated, it is also ready for follow-up and uptake.

AWARE will build the first ever aquaponic farm in Europe to be integrated in a wastewater treatment plant, generating a case study for the use of reclaimed water for farming edible fish

The project is carried on by a Consortium of expert partners specialised in different critical and overlapping competences.

Wastewater treatment

Aquaponics

Animal welfare

Impact studies

Chemistry, virology and biotechnology

Automation and Blockchain

Networking and Communication

Regulatory and policy

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