Project is brainchild of environmental scientist Sascha Iqbal
An ‘ingenious project’ underway in the Algarve that creates drinking water in a sustainable way has won the National Water Prize – a new trophy promoted by BPI (bank) in partnership with Deloitte (Knowledge Partner) and the media leader Impresa Group.
Going by the acronym CisWEFE-NEX, this is a concept inspired by environmental scientist Sascha Iqbal who divides his time between Switzerland and the Algarve, and felt he ‘had to do something’ when he first learnt of the increasing scarcity of rainfall in southern Portugal (and the wider Iberian peninsula).
Iqbal told us last year, when the project was still looking for a prospective project site, that he read about the problems and wondered what he could do. “I am not a politician; I am not an activist. I thought: ‘perhaps I can find a solution with science’”. And this is exactly what he did.
CisWEFE-NEX is an acronym for ‘Circular Systemic Water Energy Food Ecosystem Nexus’ – and what it means, as shown in the image above, is that everything is used, to work together, to create water/ energy and food in a sustainable way.
As BPI has said in its press release announcing the national water prize, “CisWEFE-Nex provides a concrete response to the environmental challenges of the Alentejo-Algarve-Andalusia Euroregion, promoting sustainability and resilience in regions affected by water scarcity”.
Now, part of a consortium of national and European organisations, the project has around €9.66 million in Horizon Europe funding, and will be working away in the Algarve for at least the next five years.
As its creator explained, this system is not something that would be used for an entire region, but by smaller decentralised entities, like businesses/ hotels/ resorts/ golf courses/ farms and farming cooperatives / salterns, which would use it to generate their own electricity, produce their own water, create by-products for onward sale/ own consumption.
The beauty of CisWEFE-NEX is that unlike concepts like desalination plants it does not produce anything that could be deemed to harm the environment. All byproducts are either used, or can degrade naturally.
Current partners include INOVA+, MORE CoLAB, In Loco*, Dariacordar, Coopérnico, IDAD-University of Aveiro and REQUIMTE, as well as the Alentejo and Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commissions and various leading organisations in Europe.
*InLOCO’s former president of the board Artur Gregório believes this project could promote the Algarve as “a new European destination for science; a circular economy lighthouse at world level”.
For Francisco Matos, BPI’s Executive Director, the project is “an example of European and cross-border innovation and cooperation. The aim of creating the National Water Prize is precisely to encourage innovation and cooperation at various levels in the response to water challenges”, he said.
As for the father of CisWEFE-NEX, he still divides his time between Switzerland and the Algarve, and is now working as a verifier of environmental product declarations.
