Drought and heat stress affect global wheat production and food security. Since these climate hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to anthropogenic climate change, there is a growing need for effective planning and adaptive actions at all timescales relevant to the stakeholders and users in this sector. This work aims at assessing the forecast quality in predicting the evolution of drought and heat stress by using user-relevant agro-climatic indices such as Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Heat Magnitude Day Index (HMDI) on a multi-annual timescale, as this time horizon coincides with the long-term strategic planning of stakeholders in the wheat sector. We present the probabilistic skill and reliability of initialized decadal forecast to predict these indices for the months preceding the wheat harvest on a global spatial scale. The results reveal the usefulness of the study in a climate services context while showing that decadal climate forecasts are skillful and reliable over several wheat harvesting regions. ; We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (MED-GOLD; Grant No. 776467, EUCP; Grant No. 776613 and FOCUS-Africa; Grant No. 869575) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the project CLINSA (Grant No. CGL2017-85791-R). This study has also received support from C3S_34c (contract number: ECMWF/COPERNICUS/2019/C3S_34c_DWD) of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) operated by ECMWF. B.S.M. acknowledges additional financial support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship (Grant No. 713673) and from a fellowship of 'la Caixa' Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/IN17/11620038. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
In recent decades, many changes have occurred in the approach to financing and operating water services in developing countries. The demand-responsive approach is now adopted in many countries in a context of donor-supported decentralization processes, which gives more responsibility to end users. However, the government's responsibility at different levels is enforced by the international recognition of the human right to water. This paper examines specific actions that build the role of local government authorities in this scenario. A collaboration between an international NGO and a rural district in Tanzania from 2006 to 2009 is used as an action research case study that is representative of local capacity-building needs in decentralized contexts and rural areas. Three main challenges were detected: i) lack of reliable information; ii) poor allocation of resources in terms of equity; and iii) lack of long-term community management support from the district. Two mechanisms were established: i) water point mapping as a tool for information and planning; and ii) a District Water and Sanitation Unit Support (DWUS) for community management. The results show how the framework provided by the goal of human right to water helps to define useful strategies for equity-oriented planning and post-project support at the local level. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
In recent decades, many changes have occurred in the approach to financing and operating water services in developing countries. The demand-responsive approach is now adopted in many countries in a context of donor-supported decentralization processes, which gives more responsibility to end users. However, the government's responsibility at different levels is enforced by the international recognition of the human right to water. This paper examines specific actions that build the role of local government authorities in this scenario. A collaboration between an international NGO and a rural district in Tanzania from 2006 to 2009 is used as an action research case study that is representative of local capacity-building needs in decentralized contexts and rural areas. Three main challenges were detected: i) lack of reliable information; ii) poor allocation of resources in terms of equity; and iii) lack of long-term community management support from the district. Two mechanisms were established: i) water point mapping as a tool for information and planning; and ii) a District Water and Sanitation Unit Support (DWUS) for community management. The results show how the framework provided by the goal of human right to water helps to define useful strategies for equity-oriented planning and post-project support at the local level. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
Technical Memoranda ; The study aims to explore the usage of these recent decadal predictions and illustrate the added-value of initialized predictions over non-initialized climate simulations for building a reliable climate service for agricultural needs on a multi-annual to decadal timescale. ; We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme (EUCP; grant agreement no. 776613) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the CLINSA project (CGL2017-85791-R). Balakrishnan Solaraju Murali would also like to acknowledge financial support from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship (grant agreement No. 713673) and from "La Caixa Banking Foundation" for the financial support received through the "La Caixa" INPhINIT Fellowship Grant for Doctoral studies at Spanish Research Centres of Excellence. LPC's contract is co-financed by the MINECO under Juan de la Cierva Incorporación postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2015-23367. ; Preprint
Technical Memoranda ; This document provides a synthesis of the current knowledge on decadal prediction. The document is divided in three parts. The first section provides an overview of the external forcings and the slow climate oscillations that provide predictability at the decadal timescale. The second section describes the different steps of a typical decadal prediction experiment: initialization, simulation, post-processing and forecast quality assessment. That section also provides a short summary on to the level of skill currently available from decadal prediction systems. Finally, the third section provides an overview of different applications that have attempted to make use of decadal predictions, in particular in agriculture-relevant sectors. The document concludes by offering a perspective on the development of decadal prediction in the upcoming years. ; We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme (EUCP; grant agreement no. 776613) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the CLINSA project (CGL2017-85791-R). Balakrishnan Solaraju Murali would also like to acknowledge financial support from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship (grant agreement No. 713673) and from "La Caixa Banking Foundation" for the financial support received through the "La Caixa" INPhINIT Fellowship Grant for Doctoral studies at Spanish Research Centres of Excellence. LPC's contract is co-financed by the MINECO under Juan de la Cierva Incorporación postdoctoral fellowship number IJCI-2015-23367. ; Preprint
We offer an overview of the COVID-19 -driven air quality changes across 11 metropolises in Spain with the focus on lessons learned on how continuing abating pollution. Traffic flow decreased by up to 80% during the lockdown and remained relatively low during the full relaxation (June and July). After the lockdown a significant shift from public transport to private vehicles (+21% in Barcelona) persisted due to the pervasive fear that using public transport might increase the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, which need to be reverted as soon as possible. NO2 levels fell below 50% of the WHO annual air quality guidelines (WHOAQGs), but those of PM2.5 were reduced less than expected due to the lower contributions from traffic, increased contributions from agricultural and domestic biomass burning, or meteorological conditions favoring high secondary aerosol formation yields. Even during the lockdown, the annual PM2.5 WHOAQG was exceeded in cities within the NE and E regions with high NH3 emissions from farming and agriculture. Decreases in PM10 levels were greater than in PM2.5 due to reduced emissions from road dust, vehicle wear, and construction/demolition. Averaged O3 daily maximum 8-h (8hDM) experienced a generalized decrease in the rural receptor sites in the relaxation (June–July) with -20% reduced mobility. For urban areas O3 8hDM responses were heterogeneous, with increases or decreases depending on the period and location. Thus, after canceling out the effect of meteorology, 5 out of 11 cities experienced O3 decreases during the lockdown, while the remaining 6 either did not experience relevant reductions or increased. During the relaxation period and coinciding with the growing O3 season (June–July), most cities experienced decreases. However, the O3 WHOAQG was still exceeded during the lockdown and full relaxation periods in several cities. For secondary pollutants, such as O3 and PM2.5, further chemical and dispersion modeling along with source apportionment techniques to identify major precursor reduction targets are required to evaluate their abatement potential. ; The present work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y Reto Demográfico (17CAES010), the "Agencia Estatal de Investigación" from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (IDAEA-CSIC is a Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa CEX2018-000794-S), FEDER funds under the project CAIAC (PID2019- 108990RB-I00), and by the Generalitat de Catalunya (AGAUR 2017 SGR41). We would like to thank the Spanish Meteorological Office (AEMET) for providing meteorological data as well as NASA for providing OMI-NO2 data. BSC co-authors acknowledge the support of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), which is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission, the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICINN) (RTI2018-099894-BI00, CGL2017-88911-R), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (PID2019-108086RA-I00/AEI/0.13039/501100011033), the AXA Research Fund, and PRACE and RES for awarding access to Marenostrum4 based in Spain at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. H. Petetin also acknowledges the European Union's Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme under the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant agreement H2020-MSCACOFUND-2016-754433. ; Peer Reviewed ; Article signat per 20 autors/es: Xavier Querol (a), Jordi Massagué (a, b), Andrés Alastuey (a), Teresa Moreno (a), Gotzon Gangoiti (c), Enrique Mantilla (d), José Jaime Duéguez (d), Miguel Escudero (e), Eliseo Monfort (f), Carlos Pérez García-Pandog (h), Hervé Petetin (g), Oriol Jorba (g), Víctor Vázquez (i, j), Jesús de la Rosa (k), Alberto Campos (l), Marta Muñóz (l), Silvia Monge (l), María Hervás (l), Rebeca Javato (l), María J. Cornide (l) a- Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, IDAEA-CSIC, Barcelona 08034, Spain b- Department of Mining, Industrial and ICT Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), Manresa 08242, Spain c- Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Basque Country, Leioa 48940, Spain d- Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo, CEAM, València 46980, Spain e- Centro Universitario de la Defensa, Academia General Militar, Zaragoza 50090, Spain f- Instituto de Tecnología Cerámica ITC-UJI, Castelló 12006, Spain g- Barcelona Supercomputing Center, BSC-CNS, Barcelona 08034, Spain h- ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona 08010, Spain i- Department of Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain j- Department of Research and Development, Coccosphere Environmental Analysis, 29120 Málaga, Spain k- Department of Geology, University of Huelva, Unidad de Investigación Associada a IDAEA-CSIC, Huelva 21819, Spain l- D.G. Calidad y Evaluación Ambiental del Ministerio de Transición Ecológica y Reto Demográfico, Madrid 28071, Spain ; Postprint (published version)
This paper presents a new code for the analysis of gamma spectra generated by an equipment for continuous measurement and identification of gamma radioactivity in aerosols with paper filter. It is called pGamma and has been developed by the NERG group at the Technical University of Catalonia - Barcelona Tech and Raditel Serveis i Subministraments Tecnològics, Ltd. The code is being adapted to the monitors of the Environmental Radiological Surveillance Network of the Generalitat de Catalunya (local Catalan Government), Spain. The code is a spectrum analysis system for identifying and determining activity concentration of gamma emitters. It generates alarms depending on the activity of emitters and then elaborates reports. Moreover, it includes a library with NORM and artificial emitters of interest. The code is being used at three stations of the Network equipped with an aerosol monitor (Ascó and Vandellòs (province of Tarragona)and Barcelona). ; Postprint (published version)
Appropriate hydrodynamic conditions are crucial in photobioreactors (PBR) in order to prevent sedimentation of microalgal biomass and to ensure the uniform exposure of microalgae cells to light and nutrients. Hydrodynamic conditions are also important to guarantee efficient mass transfer and proper shear stress on the transparent walls of the PBR, which can avoid the formation of undesired biofilm. Numerical simulations based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can assist to improve the hydrodynamic design and optimization of PBRs. In this study, CFD was used as a tool to investigate the hydrodynamics of a hybrid horizontal tubular PBR designed for microalgae cultivation and wastewater treatment. The flow regime, average circulation time and shear stress distribution in the tubes were evaluated. To establish the reliability of the simulation study, the CFD model was validated using tracer experimental tests and ultrasonic flow meter measurements. Results showed that the hydrodynamic conditions in the tubes resembled plug flow with small axial dispersion. The simulated velocity profile in the tube corresponded to the analytical velocity profile based on experimental data. Simulations also showed that, even increasing flow velocities, low velocity zones were present in some zones of the PBR. The shear stress distribution in the tubes showed values higher enough to reduce or avoid the formation of biofilm, nevertheless the shear stress value is not sufficient to remove the already formed biofilm. Based on the numerical investigation and practical evaluation, this study demonstrated that CFD is a useful tool to optimize PBR design and operation in order to enhance microalgae production and boost the scale-up of this technology. ; This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under OP RDE grant number CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000753 "Research centre for low-carbon energy technologies". This research was supported by Student Grant Competition of CTU as part of grant no. SGS20/118/OHK2/2T/12. Authors would like to thank the European Commission [project INCOVER, GA 689242] and the Government of Catalonia [Consolidated Research Group 2017 SGR 1029] for their financial support. E. Uggetti and R. Díez Montero would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Economy for their research grants [RYC2018-025514-I and IJC2019-042069-I, respectively]. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
The present study evaluated the efficiency of a high rate algal pond (HRAP) at pilot scale to remove pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) from urban wastewater, including UV-filters and parabens (10), benzotriazoles (4), antibiotics (15), anti-inflammatories (3) and other pharmaceuticals (3). A total of 35 compounds were targeted, of which 21 were detected in the influent wastewater to the HRAP. Removals (RE%) for pharmaceuticals were variable, with efficient eliminations for atenolol (84%) and sulfathiazole (100%), whereas the anti-inflammatories naproxen and ketoprofen were only partially removed <50%. Benzotriazoles showed elimination rates similar to those of conventional WWTPs, with RE% ranging from no elimination to 51% for the UV filter benzophenone-3 (BP3) and 100% for 4-methylbenzilidenecamphor (4MBC). Hazard quotients (HQs) were estimated for those compounds not fully eliminated in the HRAP, as well as the cumulative ecotoxicity in the resulting effluent. The majority of the compounds yielded HQs < 0.1, meaning that no environmental risk would be derived from their discharge. Overall, these results clearly indicate that HRAPs are a reliable, green and cost-effective alternative to intensive wastewater treatment, yielding promising results removing these contaminants ; M.J. García-Galán and M. Garfí would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for their research grants (IJCI-2017-34601 and RYC-2016-20059, respectively). Lucas Vassalle would like to acknowledge the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development from Brazilian Ministry of Education—CNPQ (scholarship 204026/2018-0). Larissa T. Arashiro is grateful to the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 676070 (SuPER-W). This communication reflects only the author's view and the Research Executive Agency of the EU is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The authors would like to thank Antonio Ortiz Ruiz for his help on the design of Figure 1. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
Decadal climate prediction, where climate models are initialized with the contemporaneous state of the Earth system and run for a decade into the future, represents a new source of near-term climate information to better inform decisions and policies across key climate-sensitive sectors. This paper illustrates the potential usefulness of such predictions for building a climate service for agricultural needs. In particular, we assess the forecast quality of multi-model climate predictions in estimating two user-relevant drought indices, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), at multi-annual timescales during European summer. We obtain high skill for predicting five-year average (forecast years 1–5) SPEI across Southern Europe, while for the same forecast period SPI exhibits high and significant skill over Scandinavia and its surrounding regions. In addition, an assessment of the added value of initialized decadal climate information with respect to standard uninitialized climate projections is presented. The model initialization improves the forecast skill over Central Europe, the Balkan region and Southern Scandinavia. Most of the increased skill found with initialization seems to be due to the climate forecast systems ability to improve the extended summer precipitation and potential evapotranspiration forecast, as well as their ability to adequately represent the observed effects of these climate variables on the drought indices. ; We would like to acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (EUCP; Grant No. 776613 and MED-GOLD; Grant No. 776467) and from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the CLINSA (Grant No. CGL2017-85791-R) and HIATUS (Grant No. CGL2015-70353-R) projects. BSM acknowledges additional financial support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship (Grant No. 713673) and from a fellowship of 'la Caixa' Foundation (ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/ IN17/11620038. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)
In intensive livestock production areas, farmers must apply manure management systems to comply with governmental regulations. Biogas plants, as a source of renewable energy, have the potential to reduce environmental impacts comparing with other manure management practices. Nevertheless, manure processing at biogas plants also incurs in non-desired gas emissions that should be considered. At present, available emission calculation methods cover partially emissions produced at a biogas plant, with the subsequent difficulty in the preparation of life cycle inventories. The objective of this study is to characterise gaseous emissions: ammonia (NH3-N), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2Oindirect, and N2Odirect) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) from the anaerobic co-digestion of cow manure by using different approaches for preparing gaseous emission inventories, and to compare the different methodologies used. The chosen scenario for the study is a biogas plant located next to a dairy farm in the North of Catalonia, Spain. Emissions were calculated by two methods: field measurements and estimation, following international guidelines. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines were adapted to estimate emissions for the specific situation according to Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 approaches. Total air emissions at the biogas plant were calculated from the emissions produced at the three main manure storage facilities on the plant: influent storage, liquid fraction storage, and the solid fraction storage of the digestate. Results showed that most of the emissions were produced in the liquid fraction storage. Comparing measured emissions with estimated emissions, NH3, CH4, N2Oindirect and H2S total emission results were in the same order of magnitude for both methodologies, while, N2Odirect total measured emissions were one order of magnitude higher than the estimates. A Monte Carlo analysis was carried out to examine the uncertainties of emissions determined from experimental data, providing probability distribution functions. Four emission inventories were developed with the different methodologies used. Estimation methods proved to be a useful tool to determine emissions when field sampling is not possible. Nevertheless, it was not possible to establish which methodology is more reliable. Therefore, more measurements at different biogas plants should be evaluated to validate the methodologies more precisely. ; Postprint (author's final draft)
In intensive livestock production areas, farmers must apply manure management systems to comply with governmental regulations. Biogas plants, as a source of renewable energy, have the potential to reduce environmental impacts comparing with other manure management practices. Nevertheless, manure processing at biogas plants also incurs in non-desired gas emissions that should be considered. At present, available emission calculation methods cover partially emissions produced at a biogas plant, with the subsequent difficulty in the preparation of life cycle inventories. The objective of this study is to characterise gaseous emissions: ammonia (NH3-N), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2Oindirect, and N2Odirect) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) from the anaerobic co-digestion of cow manure by using different approaches for preparing gaseous emission inventories, and to compare the different methodologies used. The chosen scenario for the study is a biogas plant located next to a dairy farm in the North of Catalonia, Spain. Emissions were calculated by two methods: field measurements and estimation, following international guidelines. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines were adapted to estimate emissions for the specific situation according to Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 approaches. Total air emissions at the biogas plant were calculated from the emissions produced at the three main manure storage facilities on the plant: influent storage, liquid fraction storage, and the solid fraction storage of the digestate. Results showed that most of the emissions were produced in the liquid fraction storage. Comparing measured emissions with estimated emissions, NH3, CH4, N2Oindirect and H2S total emission results were in the same order of magnitude for both methodologies, while, N2Odirect total measured emissions were one order of magnitude higher than the estimates. A Monte Carlo analysis was carried out to examine the uncertainties of emissions determined from experimental data, providing probability distribution functions. Four emission inventories were developed with the different methodologies used. Estimation methods proved to be a useful tool to determine emissions when field sampling is not possible. Nevertheless, it was not possible to establish which methodology is more reliable. Therefore, more measurements at different biogas plants should be evaluated to validate the methodologies more precisely. ; Postprint (author's final draft)
This work aims to shed light on the yet unanswered question regarding the limited carbonation yield of activatedlizardite via direct carbonation. Two amorphous Mg-rich silicate phases were identified upon activation. A rapid and complete carbonation of a highly reactive amorphous silicate phase was observed under moderately low pressure and temperature conditions (50-120 °C, 6 bar). Carbonation of this phase yielded to the formation of carbonates and a Si-rich passivating phase. On the other hand, the other amorphous silicate phase remained unaltered upon carbonation, fixing a significant amount of Mg within its disordered structure. The presence of poorly reactive intermediate Mg-rich silicate and Si-rich phases might be responsible for the yet unanswered relatively low carbonation efficiencies obtained via direct carbonation of activated lizardite. These limiting factors are considered to reduce the carbonation yield significantly more than the nucleation of forsterite during thermal activation. Analogous experiments carried with different meta-serpentines yielded the formation of distinct carbonate phases. The different distribution of highly and poorly-reactive amorphous phases among the different activated materials might have played an important role in the accelerated formation of magnesite (which was observed to occur once hydromagnesite formation reached a steady state) and the transformation of nesquehonite to dypingite-like phases. ; This work has been partially funded by the Government of Catalonia through the FI-2017 program for the recruitment of early-stage researchers (K.R.). Contract number: 2017 FI_B00129 (K.R.). Authors are grateful to Prof. Joaquín Proenza (Universitat de Barcelona) who kindly provided the samples studied in this research. The authors gratefully acknowledge Prof. Alissa Park and Mr. Guanhi Rim for insightful discussions. Technical assistance in sample characterization of the reaction products by Drs. Trifon Trifonov and Montserrat Domínguez-Escalante, from the Barcelona ...
Quantitative evidence of health and environmental tradeoffs between individuals' drinking water choices is needed to inform decision-making. We evaluated health and environmental impacts of drinking water choices using health impact and life cycle assessment (HIA, LCA) methodologies applied to data from Barcelona, Spain. We estimated the health and environmental impacts of four drinking water scenarios for the Barcelona population: 1) currently observed drinking water sources; a complete shift to 2) tap water; 3) bottled water; or 4) filtered tap water. We estimated the local bladder cancer incidence attributable to trihalomethane (THM) exposure, based on survey data on drinking water sources, THM levels, published exposure-response functions, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from the Global Burden of Disease 2017. We estimated the environmental impacts (species lost/year, and resources use) from waste generation and disposal, use of electricity, chemicals, and plastic to produce tap or bottled drinking water using LCA. The scenario where the entire population consumed tap water yielded the lowest environmental impact on ecosystems and resources, while the scenario where the entire population drank bottled water yielded the highest impacts (1400 and 3500 times higher for species lost and resource use, respectively). Meeting drinking water needs using bottled or filtered tap water led to the lowest bladder cancer DALYs (respectively, 140 and 9 times lower than using tap water) in the Barcelona population. Our study provides the first attempt to integrate HIA and LCA to compare health and environmental impacts of individual water consumption choices. Our results suggest that the sustainability gain from consuming water from public supply relative to bottled water may exceed the reduced risk of bladder cancer due to THM exposure from consuming bottled water in Barcelona. Our analysis highlights several critical data gaps and methodological challenges in quantifying integrated health and environmental impacts of drinking water choices. ; We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the "Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019–2023" Program (CEX2018-000806-S), and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program. We are grateful to the Government of Catalonia (Consolidated Research Group 2017 SGR 1029). MG (RYC-2016-20059) and CT (RYC-2015-17402) acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Authors are also thankful to Andrea Arias and María Teresa Moreira (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain) for their contribution, to Iro Evlampidou for contributing to the conceptualization of the analysis, to Anna Gómez and Xavier Bartoll (Barcelona Public Health Agency, ASPB) for contributing with data on water quality water consumption from the Barcelona Health Survey 2016, and to Manolis Kogevinas and Natalie Mueller (ISGlobal) for their comments on the concept and analysis. ; Peer Reviewed ; Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::6 - Aigua Neta i Sanejament ; Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum Responsables ; Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::3 - Salut i Benestar ; Postprint (published version)
The aim of this study was to estimate the carbon footprint (CFP) of constructed wetlands for winery wastewater treatment. In particular, a constructed wetland scenario was compared to the previous scenario (third-party management) and to an activated sludge system. CFP considered both indirect and direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions measured on-site. Moreover, an economic analysis of the considered scenarios was also addressed. The results showed that the constructed wetland scenario had the lowest CFP (1.2 kg CO2eq mwater-3), while the third-party management was the worst scenario (52 kg CO2eq mwater-3) followed by the activated sludge system (4.5 kg CO2eq mwater-3). This was mainly due to the high GHG emissions generated by wastewater and sludge transportation as well as chemicals and electricity consumption in the third-party and activated sludge scenarios compared to the constructed wetlands. In terms of costs, the constructed wetland system was shown to be a low-cost technology which would reduce the capital, operation and maintenance costs associated with winery wastewater treatment up to 50% and 98%, respectively. Finally, constructed wetlands are low-cost and environmentally friendly technologies which constitute a sustainable alternative to conventional solutions for winery wastewater treatment. ; This research was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (Interreg V-B SUDOE programme, WETWINE SOE1/P5/E0300). Laura Flores is grateful to the Ministry of Education and Culture (MECD) (Spain) for the FPU16/01491 scholarship. Joan García, Marianna Garfí and Laura Flores are grateful to the Government of Catalonia (Consolidated Research Group 2017 SGR 1029). Marianna Garfí acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (RYC-2016-20059). The authors are grateful for the support provided by the WETWINE consortium and the wineries involved in this study. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (author's final draft)