Naturebiopromo

PROJECT

MISSION

Consortium and case studies

Soil Biodiversity

Resources

Events

Contact

Consortium

NATUREBIOPROMO consists of an intercontinental consortium of 7 partners spanning 6 countries Portugal, Brazil, France, Czechia, Italy and South Africa.

1 - CIIMAR

Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Portugal (PI: Patricia Cardoso, pcardoso@ciimar.up.pt;
Team: Francisco Arenas, Cristina Calheiros, Marina Dolbeth, Martina Ilarri, Harold Casalis)

Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal (PI: Vitor Vilar, vilar@fe.up.pt;
Team:  Catarina Cruzeiro)

Federal University of Rio Grande Sul, Brazil(PI: Lucia Rodrigues, luciarrodrigues@gmail.com;
Team: Odorico Konrad, Carlos Alexandre Lutterbeck, Ênio Leandro Machado, Joice Mörs, Elizandro Silveira Oliveira, Gustavo Stolzenberg Colares)

University of Montpellier, France (PI: Serge chiron, serge.chiron@montpellier.fr;
Team: David Rosain, Diana Patricia Lopez)

(PI: Filip Mercl, mercl@af.czu.cz;
Team: Adam Sochacki, Jan Vymazal)

University of Brescia, Italy (PI: Giorgio Bertanza, giorgio.bertanza@unibs.it;
Team: Marta Domini, Vera Ventura)

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa (PI: Luyanda Ndlela, LNdlela@csir.co.za; 

Team: Anna-Maria Botha-Oberholster, Sumaya Clarke, Mbuyiselwa Moloi, Maronel Steyn, Yolanda Tancu, Chavon Walters, Sam Mc Culloch-Jones)

Project partners

Project coordinator

Project Partners

Case studies

Parada do Bouro CW (Portugal)

CW integrated into a municipal wastewater treatment plant located in Parada do Bouro, North Portugal (41° 36' 09" N, 8° 10' 19" W). The CW treats urban wastewater from a rural community of approximately 400 inhabitants The urban WWTP includes a preliminary treatment followed by two horizontal subsurface flow CWs (HSFCW), working in parallel. HSFCW consist of gravel beds planted with Phragmites australis promoting horizontal flow through the filter media, covering an area of approximately 400 m2 and a depth of 65 cm.

Pálec CW (Czech Republic)

The full-scale CW system is located in the village of Páleč (50° 18′ 42.95″ N, 14° 2′ 58.52″ E, in Kladno District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic) 60 km in north-west of Prague. The system has been recently put into operation (2025), so it has not yet reached its nominal flow and treats municipal wastewater from a separate sewer. The treatment plant consists of 2 intermittently fed vertical-flow beds (372 m2, each) planted with reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) and common rush (Juncus effusus) and uses screens, grit chambers, and a septic tank as a pretreatment step.

Microalgae ponds (South Africa)

A passive WWTP for domestic effluent, using microalgae (Chlorella sp.) consortia in ponds. The plant is located in Mossel Bay (34° 10′ 58.8″ S, 22° 8′ 45.6″ E). The wastewater treatment system makes use of seven ponds designed to allow gravity to flow from one pond to the next without electricity.

UFRGS campus CW (Brazil)

The full-scale experimental system was built in the UFRGS campus (30° 01′ 56.8″ S, 51° 13′ 09.5″ W), in the city of Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) and receives raw wastewater (sanitary effluents mainly from washrooms and Laboratory sinks). The treatment system operation started in November 2024 and is composed of a Vertical Flow Constructed Wetland (CW) and a horizontal flow (CW). The CWs are planted with Canna sp.