Innovative Solution for Freshwater Transportation
Bringing a modular technology for fresh water sea-transportation to full scale
| Business | Period | Project Coordinator | Funding Scheme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry | 2010 - 2015 | INDUSTRIAL SEDO SL |
Specific Programme "Capacities": Research for the benefit of SMEs |
Challenge
Water scarcity and water stress are increasingly compelling issues at European and global level. According to estimates by European Commission’s DG Environment, at least 11% of Europe's population and 17% of its territory are affected by water scarcity, most of them being located along the Mediterranean shore.
Water resources are still abundant in the Mediterranean basin, but their distribution is uneven with 72 percent of resources in the north, 23 percent in the east, and five percent in the south. Thus, the shortage of water is mainly focused in the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries even if the severe droughts experienced in recent years have marked the vulnerability of the water supply even in the industrialized northern Mediterranean countries.
Approach
We have developed and successfully tested a new solution for the transportation of bulk quantities of freshwater across the sea and consists of an evolution of the so-called “waterbag” technology, which basically uses large monolithic flexible barges towed by tugboats.
The innovation has been developed within the EU research projects REFRESH (GA262494, 2010-2012) and XXL-REFRESH (GA606423, 2013-2015) and further industrial upscaling activities in cooperation with our industrial partners.
The key innovation is the development of a floating waterbag with a modular design made of textile modular sections joined by a unique watertight high-strength zip closure.
The REFRESH waterbag concept has fundamental advantages over traditional waterbags and can complement other means of freshwater transportation and storage:
- Modular design allows easy reconfigurability of the waterbag to deal with various requirements in terms of capacity, depth at filling and destination ports, easy handling without the need for heavy equipment, easy sanitation, and easy transportation when empty using standard pallets.
- The waterbag can be conveniently used as emergency storage of freshwater in the absence of an existing infrastructure where to discharge the water at destination.
- Desalination is an excellent solution for the production of freshwater, however desalination plants require high initial investments and operative costs; moreover, high energy consumption and generation of brine are serious environmental concerns, discouraging the realisation of new desalination plants in protected areas, Natura 2000 sites, or prairies of Posidonia. Waterbags can be conveniently used to transport freshwater produced by desalination plants to other regions.
- Waterbags can be the solution to supply bulk quantities of freshwater to coastal areas subjected to natural disasters.
Conclusion
We have developed a solution for the adaptation of coastal communities to the severe issue of water scarcity exacerbated by climate changes, guaranteeing a secure, modular and tailorable supply of drinking water and water for agricultural use.
Our waterbags are a solution also for extreme weather events, which could hit coastal areas and damage the existing water infrastructure. The modular waterbag can in fact be transported folded on pallets in standard containers and transported where required, where can be assembled and filled with freshwater from the nearest harbour and finally pulled by a standard tugboat to the final destination.
The waterbag can also be used as temporary storage moored nearshore in case of damage of the available infrastructure or absence of it.
