Promoting the protection and full recovery of the Campo de Cartagena salt lagoon. This is the objective of the pilot project that the FACSA-INAM joint venture has launched, in its construction phase, at the Los Alcázares Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in Murcia, thanks to which it will be possible to denitrify the water that may reach the Mar Menor through this area.
The initiative, which will study different possibilities for treating water from the shallow water table and the Quaternary aquifer, aims to achieve sustainable agriculture that helps improve the environmental quality and basic resources on which the Campo de Cartagena region depends.
The project, which is being carried out on a plot of 2,000 square meters, will have three different types of wetlands, which will treat the water from agricultural areas of the Campo de Cartagena, whose results will be compared in order to study its viability, the parameters that can optimize its operation and, ultimately, improve its efficiency.
The first of these wetlands will operate with a gravel bed system, like conventional green filters; the second will use a mixture of gravel and soil from the site with organic matter content capable of removing nitrates from the water; and the third will use a novel and promising material called biochar, which comes from the combustion of plant material forming a compound similar to activated carbon with a great capacity to remove nitrates.
The aim is to denitrify water at a better price and in a more sustainable way, as well as achieving optimal levels of results using a simple procedure.
The project, for which 180,000 euros have been allocated, is financed by the Regional Entity for Sanitation and Wastewater Treatment (ESAMUR), attached to the Ministry of Water, Agriculture and Environment of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia, and has been developed in collaboration with researchers from the Department of Ecology and Hydrology of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Murcia (UMU).
Regarding the relevance of this initiative, the Minister of Water, Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Region of Murcia, Miguel Ángel del Amor, himself recognized during a recent visit to the Wetland works the “importance” of this initiative, “within the roadmap of the Regional Government, for the sustainability of the Mar Menor”.
The initiative, which will end next August, is part of the set of measures being adopted by the Office for Socioeconomic Promotion and the Environment (OISMA) of the Ministry of Water, Agriculture and Environment of the Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia to reduce the impacts caused by the arrival of eutrophic waters to the Mar Menor.
