Water scarcity, population growth, and climate change put immense pressure on global water resources, challenging human health, environmental sustainability, and economic development. DECIRE-WATER addresses these issues by demonstrating innovative, scalable, and circular water and wastewater management solutions at five sites in Europe and one in South Africa. The project will provide pioneering, affordable, and sustainable decentralised systems, designed to function independently or integrated with centralised infrastructure, predominantly based on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) but also incorporating technical processes. By project completion, our solutions will reach TRL 7-8 and be tailored to diverse geographic, climatic, and socio-economic conditions. Advanced monitoring technologies and digital tools will be incorporated to demonstrate that DECIRE-WATER can achieve the required level of safety and reliability, which is critical for achieving regulatory approval, public acceptance, and eventual market adoption. We will engage stakeholders through co-design and co-creation, fostering acceptance and market uptake, while developing a decision framework to guide policymakers. Public-private partnerships will also be explored to test sustainable business models. Our long-term impact by 2035, is to operate the DECIRE-WATER systems which will collectively drive €60 million in revenues and create 200 jobs in the water sector. In addition, our solutions will collectively benefit 7% of the European population by reclaiming over 7.8 million m³ of water annually, with estimated energy savings amounting to 751,300 MWh/year. By aligning with EU priorities on climate resilience, water security, and sustainability, DECIRE-WATER is well-positioned to meet global water management challenges, ensuring long-term impact and success.

The AquaNES project will catalyse innovations in water and wastewater treatment processes and management through improved combinations of natural and engineered components. Among the demonstrated solutions are natural treatment processes such as bank filtration (BF), managed aquifer recharge (MAR) and constructed wetlands (CW) plus engineered pre- and post-treatment options. The project focuses on 13 demonstration sites in Europe, India and Israel covering a repre-sentative range of regional, climatic, and hydrogeological conditions in which different combined natural-engineered treatment systems (cNES) will be demonstrated through active collaboration of knowledge and technology providers, water utilities and end-users. Our specific objectives are • to demonstrate the benefits of post-treatment options such as membranes, activated carbon and ozonation after bank filtration for the production of safe drinking water • to validate the treatment and storage capacity of soil-aquifer systems in combination with oxidative pre-treatments • to demonstrate the combination of constructed wetlands with different technical post- or pre-treatment options (ozone or bioreactor systems) as a wastewater treatment option • to evidence reductions in operating costs and energy consumption • to test a robust risk assessment framework for cNES • to deliver design guidance for cNES informed by industrial or near-industrial scale expe-riences • to identify and profile new market opportunities in Europe and overseas for cNES The AquaNES project will demonstrate combined natural-engineered treatment systems as sus-tainable adaptations to issues such as water scarcity, excess water in cities and micro-pollutants in the water cycle. It will thus have impact across the EIP Water’s thematic priorities and cross-cutting issues, particularly on ‘Water reuse & recycling’, ‘Water and wastewater treatment’, ‘Water-energy nexus’, ‘Ecosystem services’, ‘Water governance’, and ‘DSS & monitoring’.