EU COST Action: Mainstreaming water reuse into the circular economy paradigm

Water4Reuse aims to integrate, in an interdisciplinary and intersectorial approach, the entire wastewater treatment chain to improve water management and promote the recycling and reuse of treated wastewater and by-products, under territorial, health, social, economic, and environmental constraints. By adopting a multi-actor approach, the action aims to develop tools and methods, such as innovative biorefineries to satisfy all potential water uses and finally contribute to the improvement of water reuse within the circular
economy paradigm. To this end, it advocates an integrated and multi-disciplinary vision of wastewater reuse, a major lever in the water-energy-food nexus, particularly in urban and peri-urban areas. Water4reuse mobilises many complementary skills: starting not from a technical and technological inventory but from the needs expressed by the key actors and end-users (farmers, local authorities, industrialists, service providers, etc.). In particular, it mobilises modelling to assess and control the associated risks and to overcome obstacles for mainstreaming water reuse. It will contribute to preserving resources, meeting the challenges of treatment costs, reducing conflicts of uses, and, through the involvement of all stakeholders, improving the
lives of citizens by promoting human development, social interaction taking into account all climate change effects. Ultimately, it will contribute to the paradigm shift that accompanies the change in status of wastewater from a waste product treated for discharge into the environment, to « new » resources to be processed following the new “water on demand” concept.

Purpose and Key objectives
• Integrate water reuse into the circular economy.
• Improve water management through a cross-sectoral and
interdisciplinary approach.
• Promote the recycling and reuse of treated water and its by-
products. Develop innovative tools and methods, such as
biorefineries.
• Support an integrated vision of water reuse, particularly in
urban and peri-urban areas.