Development a smart forewarning system to assess the occurrence, fate and behaviour of contaminants of emerging concern and pathogens, in waters
and risk assessmEnt approaches
During this June 15th-16th in Dublin, we'll be doing our Summer School for the Forewarn Project. We'll learn about the new tools to assess contaminants of emerging concern in the aquatic environment.
FOREWARN will assess the occurrence, fate and behaviour of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and pathogens, and develop machine-learning methods to model their transfer and behaviour and build a decision support system (DSS) based on artificial intelligence (AI) for predicting risks and identify wastewater treatments to establish mitigation strategies.
FOREWARN will be focussed on CECs such as antibiotics and pathogens such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) and emerging viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.
Ebro Delta (NE of Spain)
The Ebro Delta comprises a wetland area of 320 km and it is the
third-largest delta in the Mediterranean Sea.
The river passes through the most densely populated area in the metropolitan district of southern Finland and ends in the Baltic Sea in Helsinki.
Data collection on CECs and Pathogens and modeling
ARB and ARG
Experimental case studies and DSS validation
The main objective is to study, assess, and model the occurrence, fate and behaviour of pathogens including viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, CECs, and the development of ARB, and ARG under different environmental, climatic, and hydrological situations.
FOREWARN will use previous databases and also provide new data to feed the models to develop a decision support system (DSS) for predicting risks associated to these pollutants and will propose mitigation efficient strategies.
The DSS will be able to prevent risks and propose mitigation strategies supporting the decision-making processes of WW managers, water authorities, and the implementation of European policies.
The optimization of WWTs adapted for each particular will improve quality of WWs reducing negative impacts in the environment and human health, and will help to save energy and resources.
This project is co-funded under the EPA Research Programme 2021-2030 from Ireland; the Ministry of Development; General Secretariat for Research and Technology from Greece; the French National Research Agency from France; the Academy of Finland from Finland; and the Spanish State Research Agency and Institute of Health Carlos III from Spain. The EPA Research Programme is a Government of Ireland initiative funded by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.