WASA at the 14th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse 2025

WASA has established a good working relationship with other research projects in the water sector. The networking and transfer project WASANet was therefore invited to join in a panel discussion at the 14th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse Conference in Cape Town, South Africa in March, 2025. After all, water reuse is an important contribution to greater water security in Africa. Several WASA projects are driving research in this area. For example, the WaReNam project is contributing to a national water reuse strategy in Namiba, while the MAMDIWAS project is developing new solutions for the reuse of mine water.

The panel discussion which was organised as part of the workshop ‘Water Reuse for Agricultural and Urban Landscape Irrigation: German, European and International Perspectives’ by Dr Thomas Track from DECHEMA and the transfer and networking project TransWavEplus for WavE programme. WavE is funded by BMBF and concludes end of March 2025, in order to foster a discussion among leading experts and workshop participants regarding opportunities and challenges for water reuse practices that exhibit significant growth in the recent past – urban landscape and agricultural irrigation.

After the presentation of outcomes and results from various WavE projects, the panel discussion served to discuss transferability and upscaling of techniques and practices to other regions. Dr Helmschrot highlighted the relevance of knowledge exchange for the water sector in Sub-Sahara Africa but also referred to the different boundary conditions in African countries limiting the transfer of technologies and practices. He emphasised the great potential in the introduction of water reuse technologies due to changes in regulations and increased public awareness but also the challenges posed by limited financial, technical and human resources in African countries. This underlines the need for knowledge transfer and joint projects involving multiple stakeholders, as implemented in the WASA projects WaReNam and NEU-Water.

WASANet’s participation in the workshop underlines the established link between the WavE programme and WASA and supports the exchange and transfer of knowledge between BMBF-funded programmes to improve water security around the world.