SOIL & WATER RESOURCES INSTITUTE

NexusLabs aims to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of water, energy, and food use in Mediterranean irrigated agriculture by providing stakeholders with a comprehensive package of innovative solutions. These solutions will be tested and demonstrated in real-world Living Labs and integrated into novel, holistic tools for scenario analysis and impact assessment, fully addressing the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) Nexus. In parallel, the project will implement targeted training and market preparation strategies to enable scaling across broader regions and user communities. In the context of NexusLabs, SWRI is responsible of leading the Living Lab established in the Pinios Hydrologic Observatory (Thessaly, Greece).

The project aims to create a new closed value chain by formulating a soil amendment product based on the revalorization of 2 by-products (biochar and digestates) obtained from the bio-waste management and processing (pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion). This innovation will demonstrate the agricultural benefits and financial advantages of using the soil amendment in impoverished soils, simultaneously harnessing the synergies between agriculture and renewable gas production.

In 2020, global biofuel production levels reached 1,677,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with a growth rate per annum of 38.3% (2009-2020). The global biofuels market is expected to reach a market size of 153.8 billion U.S. dollars by 2024. This growth has largely been driven by policies that encourage the use and production of biofuels due to the perception that it could provide energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in relevant sectors. Nevertheless, as the biofuel production rises steadily, biogenic emissions increase annually as well. By the end of 2021, cumulative biogenic emissions had reached 8.8*108 metric tons CO2e. The main routes of producing carbon waste, as biogenic effluent gases within the biofuel production are anaerobic digestion, ethanolic fermentation and thermochemical processes. To this end, CRONUS aims to accelerate on the path to sustainable bioenergy and can play an important and constructive role in achieving the UN SDGs (7,8,9,11,12 and 13) by incorporating in the biofuels production lines carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CUS) techniques promoting the concept of Bioenergy and Carbon capture, utilisation and storage. The latter can stand as a solution to meet the 2021 Glasgow agreement on climate change’s aim of less than 1,5οC and contributes to the phase-out of fossil fuels and the decarbonisation of the EU economy in accordance to European Green Deal goals. Ambition The overall ambition of the CRONUS project is to significantly advance the current state of the art in the area of biofuels production and the utilisation of biogenic effluent gases. CRONUS will introduce effective technologies with high-potential innovations (techno-economic feasible solutions), thus accelerating the green transition and associated transformation of our economy, industry and society with a view to achieving climate neutrality in Europe by 2050.

LIFE CO2toCH4 aims at developing and demonstrating an innovative, integrated, and sustainable industrial process for simultaneous energy storage and CO2 capture and utilization (CCU). The ultimate goal of the project is to construct, test and operate (TRL8) a smart mobile unit for hybrid energy storage able to be installed in remote energy systems that commonly have low capacity (e.g., remote areas or islands that are not interconnected with the central energy grid). The technology relies on the fact that the RES (Renewable Energy Sources) will be used for water electrolysis, and subsequently the produced H2 will be biologically converted into methane (as a non-fossil biofuel) together with CO2 from exhaust gasses.

ARTs is an innovative and ambitious 24-month RIA project aimed at delivering digital tools for weed management related to the three most important weed species (i.e. Oryza sativa, ORYZA; Echninochloa spp, ECHCG and Cyperus difformis, CYPDI) in rice, in the largest growing region, in Thessaloniki, Greece. The above three weed species have developed resistance to several herbicides and therefore severely affect the sustainability of the crop; solutions for monitoring, surveillance and solutions for the weed management are urgently needed. The digital tools are state-of-the-art sensors (multispectral and hyperspectral ones), a novel UAV equipped with an RGB industrial camera for sub-cm scale imaging to perform mapping at the rice growing region. Weed resistance database will be based on screening of a large number of populations from the rice growing area utilizing a number of quick and reliable tests at laboratory and greenhouse conditions. The weed detection models will be based on RGB, multi spectral images or segments (i.e. using drone and near the ground images), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). A system related to monitoring, surveillance and mitigation solutions for the herbicide resistance will be delivered. Additionally, a tool for prediction model, based on Fuzzy Logic approach, to measure the probabilities of an increase of the herbicide resistance levels inside the local weed populations; data will be derived from specific cultivation conditions. Dissemination and stakeholder engagement (i.e., farmers, advisors, researchers, seed and agrochemical companies) aiming to maximize the impact of the project’s results will be done.

In the PreWeM project, fingerweeders are being investigated for their effectiveness in cotton farming. Weed management in cotton typically involves pre-emergence herbicides (usually glyphosate), complemented sometimes by two or three post-emergence applications. Currently, mechanical weed control between rows and manual weeding within rows are the only alternatives to chemical herbicides. It is planned to test and adapt fingerweeders for cotton for intra-row weed control. Fingerweeders have been proven in maize, sugar beet, and soybean crops. With PreWeM, we will identify specific challenges associated with cotton cultivation in Greece based on the knowledge and expertise we have gained from these crops. One of Greece’s most herbicide-dependent crops will be weeded mechanically using precision agriculture techniques to reduce herbicide use.