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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FLOWERED (de-FLuoridation technologies for imprOving quality of WatEr and agRo-animal products along the East African Rift Valley in the context of aDaptation to climate change.)

Teaser

Summary

FLOWERED objective is to contribute to the development of a sustainable water management system in areas affected by fluoride contamination in water, soils and food in the African Rift Valley countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania) to improve living standards of its population. FLOWERED aims to study, test and implement innovative defluoridation technologies for drinking and irrigation water that will mainly operate at small village scale and to develop an integrated, sustainable and participative water and agriculture management at a cross-boundary catchment scale. The scientific approach is based on a detailed knowledge of the geological and hydrogeological setting that controls contamination of water, prerequisite for the implementation of a sustainable water management and for the proposal of sustainable and suitable strategies for water sanitation and agricultural system. Innovative agricultural practices will be assessed, aiming to mitigate the impacts of fluoride contamination of water and soil on productivity of selected food and forage crops and dairy cattle health and production. The development of an innovative and shared Geo-data system will support the integrated, sustainable and participative management system. FLOWERED, focusing on innovative technologies and practices and taking into account local experiences, will implement an integrated water and agriculture management system and will enable local communities to manage water resources, starting from using efficient defluoridation techniques and applying sustainable agricultural practices. The integrated approaches improve knowledge for EU partners, local researchers, farmers and decision makers. The project through the involvement of SMEs will strengthen the development co-innovative demonstration processes as well as new market opportunities.

Work performed

The identification of the case study areas has been finalized, the planned activities performed and first outcomes achieved.
A critical review of existing data to propose a regional circulation model of high-fluoride waters along the African Rift Valley was completed. All collected documental information has been stored in the project data repository. Geological, hydrogeological and geochemical evidences have been integrated to identify different factors controlling fluoride mobility and concentration in the East African Rift Valley System. The fluoride geochemical background has been proposed. The Flowered Database template have been designed and populated for the three target areas with collected information on the existing water points (boreholes, springs, lakes, rivers) and available chemical previous data. The detailed geological and hydrogeological conceptual model have been realized for the three target areas and the 1st Ethiopian, Kenyan and Tanzanian field sampling campaigns of waters, rocks and soils have been designed accordingly.
To evaluate the impacts of fluoride contamination of irrigation water and cultivated soils on agricultural products, the activities were mainly focused in Kenya and Tanzania on the design and implementation of the first phase of the mesocosm trials. The choice of the crops and treatments to be investigated was made and the experimental protocols were also revised. The effect of sodium-fluoride in the irrigation water and soil on selected crops was analyzed at pot scale. Experiments were carried out and plant and soil samples were collected. Lab analyses have to be completed. All the studied crops produced similarly at all the levels of fluoride content in irrigation water.
Dental fluorosis surveys were conducted on approximately 900 ruminants in Kenya and Tanzania. Animal tissue samples were collected and analyzed for fluoride concentration to improve the understanding of the risks of fluoride transfer into the human food chain by investigating accumulation of fluoride in animal products of both managed and wild animals.
In order to achieve a low cost technology for water defluoridation, different materials have been tested at the laboratory scale. The most promising materials are almost ready to be applied in the prototypes to be tested in the field.
A land cover maps have been created in the study areas. The first version of the â€œFLOWERED-GeoDBappâ€, was developed and tested in Tanzania. Based on the architecture of the existing system SHARE-GeoNetwork, a web platform for data sharing, the FLOWERED-SHAREGeoNetwork that describes the activities and the implementation of the first release of the system has been developed and it is accessible.
SWOT and PEST analysis will shortly be developed using country-specific context information already collected together with the future data from the developed technologies in order to fit FLOWERED solutions into the market. Socio Cost Benefit Analysis data collection questionnaire has been developed and plans are underway for field data collection in spring 2018.
The project website was created. The 1st Workshop in Tanzania was an occasion to engage stakeholders and end-users generating feedback to project activities through interactive and participatory dialogue. Publications, peer reviewed articles, communication to conferences and workshop, spread FLOWERED knowledge and outcomes. Trainings activities and staff exchanges within the Consortium started to improve the capacity of young scientists and professionals to respond to the fluoride contamination of water and soils and related issues. The 1st Scientific Advisory Board report provided useful tips. A report on the project gender dimension was developed and some adjustment will be evaluated.

Final results

FLOWERED project is combining integrative science-based procedures with stakeholder knowledge and it is moving beyond linear transfer of technological approaches. The integrated approaches planned in this project is producing a new dataset of available knowledge for EU partners, local researchers, farmers, decision makers that will allow to address efficiently the fluoride contamination issue at different scales. Organizing the innovation process from a participatory perspective and addressing enabling and constraining factors at the institutional level is a key to innovation.
The main project\'s outputs consist of identification and mapping of the specific geological-hydrogeological-geochemical conditions of water contamination in relation to different land uses; development of mitigation options for fluoride contamination in agricultural and livestock systems; identification and testing of innovative water defluoridation technologies; development of an innovative Geo-Data system for the knowledge management with a web platform for data sharing and a mobile app for the collection of data.
FLOWERED is expected to have strong impacts on innovation capacity of water managers and agricultural actors; competitiveness; environment, policy and science.
The project results aim to promote the creation of market opportunities for European water innovations outside Europe with a specific action performed by SMEs addressed to the evaluation of the possible market opportunities for the analysed innovative technologies.
Furthermore, by sharing knowledge results and involving a large number of local actors within scaling out strategies, training activities and participatory learning events, FLOWERED is ensuring a better preparedness of the African partners to address water, agriculture and climate change vulnerabilities.