Final Report Summary - INAPRO (Innovative model and demonstration based water management for resource efficiency in integrated multitrophic agriculture and aquaculture systems)
Executive Summary:
INAPRO provides an approach for resource efficient water, energy and nutrient management in innovative aquaponic systems for professional application to contribute remarkably to global food security in the 21st century.
The project objective was to mobilise industry, member states and stakeholders to promote this new technical and technological sustainable solution which allows a nearly emission free food production.
INAPRO aquaponics features a water-saving combination principle of aquaculture and hydroponics providing optimal production conditions both for the fish and the plant units. By using the INAPRO technology resources are saved by 1) dual usage of water, energy and nutrients and 2) reducing sewage and the amount of fertiliser for the plants.
The INAPRO innovation concept for professional aquaponics was developed for scalable greenhouses of different sizes, from large scale agricultural facilities to small urban farming sites that are adaptable to different geographical and climatic conditions.
Four rural INAPRO aquaponic systems were installed in different parts of Europe and Asia (Spain, Germany, Belgium and China) to demonstrate their potential of water reuse with significant reductions of water consumption combined with recovery of raw material and nutrients, thus enhancing the natural water quality by reducing the environmental impact of effluents.
Ecological and economical evaluations such as a life-cycle assessment (LCA) and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) were done to proof and verify the viability as well as to determine the environmental impact of the systems and deliver arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages.
The significantly improved performance regarding the impact of aquaponic systems on the environment in terms of significantly reduced water pollution and eutrophication by nutrient leaching, compared to the conventional agriculture production would mean a great benefit for the wider society and worldwide environments. INAPRO produces healthy food free of contaminants as it uses only a minimal amount of fertiliser and no antibiotics at all.
By addressing the field of a water and energy saving sustainable food production, the INAPRO project has successfully disseminated the project´s outcomes to a large number of stakeholders in the agricultural and aquacultural field, as well as in the scientific and industrial community, in terms of technical development and business opportunities. An important step in this respect was accomplished by implementing urban INAPRO demonstration systems, involving them intensively in the projects dissemination activities at various places and opportunities.
The INAPRO partners organised seminars directed to end users to inform and obtain feedbacks from a wide range of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants.
Within the development of a management execution system (MES) for facility control the special needs of potential end users were particularly and extensively considered. Particular emphasis was given to the development of reporting tools to fit the user’s requirements. Thus especially the start-up of small and medium scaled newcomer companies in the field of aquaponics can be assisted and promoted by this software solution.
The widespread dissemination activities of all partners were essential for further exploitation of the results and achievements of the project. INAPRO aquaponics will enable a local and sustainable production, opening new market opportunities while reducing the imports of food and resulting in a reduction of CO2-emmissions. Consequently, this would definitely create an advantage for Europe´s wider society and could generate new jobs within the agricultural sector in general, but also high-skilled jobs for citizens.
To enlarge the outreach of the project special attention has been given to the complementarities with further EU funding mechanisms and related INAPRO to other parallel funded EU projects. Thereby the project established long lasting cooperation with new scientific, commercial, and public partners. INAPRO has acted as a seed project initialising follow up activities and several projects starting in 2018.
Thus the ambitions and outcomes of INAPRO met perfectly well with the recent EU strategies under the Horizon 2020 framework to face the challenges of the dramatic development of the water resource situation in Europe and worldwide.
Project Context and Objectives:
The growing world population and therefore the rising demand for food increases the pressure on water resources, land use, and ecosystems. For the necessary future extension of agricultural production the development and construction of sustainable, resource-friendly production systems including proper water, energy nutrients management based on the principles of re-use and recirculation is the only possible option.
INAPRO consequently addressed these challenges by implementing new technical and technological approaches into an innovative aquaponic system which allows a water and energy-saving, nearly emission free, sustainable production of fish and vegetables to contribute markedly to food security for the 21st century. Aquaponics is a green technology that couples aquaculture (production of fish) and hydroponic (production of vegetables) in one system. Wastewater from the aquaculture unit is used for the nutrition of the plants in the hydroponic unit and in parallel reducing the sewage of the fish production part, too.
The project reached an important step for these systems on the way towards a commercial breakthrough. This has been achieved by a model based optimisation of the aquaponic concept in respect to water consumption, environmental impact, waste avoidance, CO2 release and nutrients recycling, energy efficiency, management efforts, and production costs as well as by the integration of new technologies. Water management in aquaponic systems was the main topic of the INAPRO project and thus the emphasis of the concept laid on water usage and circulation.
The INAPRO aquaponic system concept utilises the basic idea to enhance conventional aquaponic systems which uses one single aquaponic recirculation system by a new coupling principle of the fish and the plant production parts (Fig. 2) which is described by Kloas et al. in “A new concept for aquaponic systems to improve sustainability, increase productivity, and reduce environmental impacts” (doi: 10.33547aei 00146) (Fig. 3).
The major advantage of this double recirculation system is the fact that optimum production conditions can be provided independently for both parts to increase productivity and to prevent any adverse interactions between plant and fish units. Furthermore, the process water reuse is improved and can optionally be enhanced by regaining the plant evapotranspirated water via cooling traps. By effective coupling of both parts of the system the water consumption has been reduced down to 3% of the RAS system volume per day.
That way the INAPRO project has been setting a new standard in professional and sustainable food production. INAPRO provides a system adaptable to various local conditions and to a wide range of solutions, from rural large-scale agricultural facilities to small urban farming kits, for a food production without using any pesticides. The INAPRO project covered the whole value chain from research to market orientated applications of this new aquaponic approach; therefore the main focus has been on innovations leading to demonstration objects within the duration of the project. One crucial point of the concept-based demonstration objects was to prove the viability of the resource-effective water, energy and nutrient management technologies of INAPRO in various regions. The INAPRO system offers an economic feasible solution while simultaneously reducing the water and carbon footprint. The INAPRO project has been mainly determined by the requirements and demands of industrial SMEs and end users. The manufacturing SMEs involved in this project were driving forces in research, development and demonstration, scientific partners are mainly responsible for experimental development, testing, monitoring and documentation. The far-reaching goal of the project was to mobilise industry, member states and stakeholders to promote the new and innovative INAPRO technology. The various dissemination activities (to policy, public and end users) often directly connected with the operating demonstration facilities have opened new market opportunities, awareness and acceptance and improved the market access inside and outside Europe for producers and technology suppliers.
All corresponding figures referred to in this document can be found in the annex.
Project Results:
=== SYSTEM MODEL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ===
The sustainable INAPRO aquaponic system united state of the art scientific knowledge and experiences in the fields of water, energy and nutrient management. Thereby INAPRO aquaponics features a new technological principle the water-saving combination principle of aquaculture and hydroponics to provide optimal production conditions both for the fish and the plant units.
Modelling approaches were used for optimizing the INAPRO technology and resulted in a deeper understanding of the different aspects of the system such as dynamic behaviour, design and construction of components, control and management, and the diagnosis of the measured environmental variables (Fig. 4, Fig. 5). Dynamic models of the INAPRO system were developed and implemented to support the design and construction process (Fig. 6, Fig. 7, Fig. 8). Possible technologies and configurations were weighed in order to maximise the production outcome while minimising the resources water, energy and nutrients and considering economic aspects. Based on these findings, the INAPRO project partners developed modular configured solutions, scalable and adaptable to local requirements (Fig. 14).
=== INAPRO DEMONSTRATION OBJECTS - DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION ===
The INAPRO systems proved the ability to perform successfully under different local, climatic and economic conditions. Manufacturers and farmers can use the opportunities of the system concept to consider the existing particularities and adapt the technical and technological details in system construction and operation.
During the second project period the demonstration facilities were constructed and operation started in Spain (Murcia), Germany (Waren), Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) and China (Shouguang) to prove their feasibility on a larger scale and under different geographical and climate conditions (Fig. 11).
Different climatic conditions at all four demonstrations sites have been evaluated and the results have been considered in the facility design. Generally the regional climatic conditions for the demonstration facilities were described and evaluated in deliverable D3.3. In all demonstration facilities the climate data in the aquaponics facility were monitored in the RAS and GH units.
In Murcia, Waren and Shouguang three completely new rural demonstration objects were built. In Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) one existing aquaculture facility was combined with an existing greenhouse to an aquaponic system (Fig. 18). Coupling of one or two already existing fish and/or plant systems provides a huge potential for aquaponics which is not covered by the construction of new facilities. Adaptations to the system infrastructure in Rumbeke-Beitem as result of evaluating the climate were already done before the INAPRO project has started.
Water and energy optimised system solutions including supporting technologies (sensor-techniques and automation, ICT, production management etc.) were integrated into the demonstration systems (Fig. 16).
In Abtshagen (DE) an additional small scale aquaponic system for research and development was installed to test different combinations of fish and plants and to evaluate new filter systems (Fig. 9, Fig. 10). Experiences and results gained from this test & research facility which was already fully operational and impeccable producing fish and tomatoes during the first project period were used for equipping and setting up the larger scaled rural demonstration objects.
In the process of design and building of the different aquaponic objects special challenges and local conditions had to be considered and special solutions to be found:
--- For an economic viable production in Waren (DE) a high fish output was necessary because of the high operation costs especially for labour, feed and energy. This could be solved by choosing the African catfish as a species which is suitable for high stocking densities and well marketable in Germany.
--- In Murcia (ES) tilapia were chosen for comparison with a further, more sensible species and especially the high summer temperatures had to be considered, requiring greenhouse cooling capacity. Hence an additional gas generator power supply to cope with the limited grid capacity had to be installed.
--- In Rumbeke-Beitem (BE) the connection of an already existing RAS and an existing greenhouse was the special task, needing a 100 m connecting pipe and coming with certain limitation concerning the fish and plant species and communication challenges in the day-to-day management.
--- Shouguang (CN) had substantial additional financial support from local authorities (including from SMEs) enabling a large facility and integrating mushroom production.
In terms of comparability, special care was taken to ensure that the system configuration and the coupling principle between the aquaculture and the hydroponic part were the same in the 3 systems in Spain, Germany and China.
As from the beginning of the INAPRO project and verified by modelling and research results within several WPs it was evident that a larger farm would easier achieve economic profitability than smaller facilities (cf. deliverable D4.3 and INAPRO Third Periodic Report). The available financial, planning and building capacities of the INAPRO project did not suffice to plan especially larger greenhouse capacities for the demonstration farms in Germany and Spain to at least doubled, better tripled size.
The advantages of the facility built in China were:
• A larger system is more economically viable
• The strong participation of experts from external manufacturer and end-user SMEs was facilitated to support the dissemination and exploitation activities of INAPRO in China.
In general the assumption that a larger system is more economically viable was confirmed by the INAPRO cost-benefit- analysis (cf. deliverable D4.3 and INAPRO Third Periodic Report).
The construction of the INAPRO demonstration systems has been finished in 2016.
=== OPERATION, LONG-TERM DATA ACQUISITION, AND TEST PERIOD RESULTS ===
The full functionality of all elements and modules has been tested and real time validated over a long term operation at end user sites during the second and third project period (Fig. 17 - Fig. 20). The feasibility of water reuse and closed water cycles, the significant reduction of water consumption compared with single production systems and the improved waste water treatment with recovery of raw material and nutrients facilitating an enhancement of water quality are demonstrated there and have been evaluated over two production cycles.
The testing procedures were carried out according to the developed test specification (cf. D4.2) for the INAPRO demo systems running in Spain (Murcia), Germany (Waren), Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) and China (Shouguang).
___ FISH PRODUCTION ___
Waren specialised its production to African catfish, produced at high stocking densities and with good feed conversion rates (FCR) of 1.1. This species is well marketable in Germany and green labelled by the WWF. The average production reached 12 t/a; but having a potential capacity of 15 t/a.
The project consortium including the partner and operator in Murcia decided to use Nile tilapia as target fish species, well known and marketable in Spain where freshwater fish has to compete against high quality seafood. Tilapia from aquaponics is also green-labelled by WWF. The species is more sensitive concerning water quality conditions. It could be raised up to final stocking densities of 100 kg/m³ with an FCR of 1.3.
In Rumbeke-Beitem an already existing RAS was connected with an already existing greenhouse, so the fish species used was already determined to be pikeperch, a well-known and excellent marketable high-prized freshwater fish in Europe. A FCR of 1.2 was reached, 1.0 would be possible, the raising conditions are more difficult to maintain and stocking densities of max. 50 kg/m³ are recommendable.
China was able to build larger facilities because of substantial financial and building support from local supporters, so they achieved to establish a RAS of 180 m³ holding capacity. The filter technologies used were similar to those of the other facilities but intensive liquid oxygen aeration was used to maintain the water quality conditions. The produced fish species reported was Murray Cod a high valued fish in Asia which has normally to be imported from Australia. The facility reached 80 kg/m³ with a FCR of 1.3 (potential of 100 kg/m³).
The systems reached a fish production capacity of: Waren - 12 t; Murcia - 3.5 t; Rumbeke-Beitem - 1.5 t; and Shouguang - 30 t.
A first prototype of a new filter device was implemented into the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) of the INAPRO aquaponic test & research facility in Abtshagen. It was tested within the INAPRO project in terms of nitrogen loss and showed a high potential to enhance the nutrient management and the sustainability of the INAPRO aquaponic system. The use of the new filter system was accompanied by a relative stable nutrient concentration in the fish water (Third Periodic Report at page 82).
The nitrogen loss was significantly reduced by that system modification (≈43%) and thus resulted in a quite large reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to the reduced need for manufacturing of nitrogen fertiliser. It was proved that the waste water of African catfish can thus deliver nearly 100% of the nitrogen required by tomatoes, the modified system configuration can minimise the impact to global warming enormously alone by reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the manufacturing of nitrogen fertiliser that would be needed to grow tomatoes in separated hydroponic systems (cf. Third Periodic Report).
The development of the patented device (PAL KLAR; Patent number DE 102014004767A1) has been done by the project partner PAL Anlagenbau GmbH in cooperation with the University of Rostock and was not part of the INAPRO project.
___ PLANT PRODUCTION ___
Three of the four INAPRO demonstration systems are located at sites with different climates, which affected the plant production more than the fish production. Concerning the production per net-acreage area for hydroponic plant production, generalised statements are difficult, since the specific area strongly depends on the production methods and the plant species produced. For example the vertical production of tomatoes in NFT or substrate requires extensive space to establish optimal light conditions for each plant and additionally for harvesting purposes. Here 2-3 plants per square meter are generally seen as optimal. Horizontal, hydroponic lettuce or basil production enables a much higher plant density per square meter since only the width of the plant determines the maximum amount of plants per area. Thus a comparison of different crops needs to be conducted in a careful way and additional factors like water consumption, nutrient requirement and uptake, and net productivity have to be considered.
It could be demonstrated that in the INAPRO system comparable tomato yields were produced as obtained for conventional hydroponics. In the INAPRO test & research facility a total yield of 29.4 kg/m2 was gained using optimised fish waste water and resulted in similar yields as the control of conventional hydroponics with 31.6 kg/m²; being not statistically different. Significantly higher yields under aquaponic conditions were found in the INAPRO system of Rumbeke-Beitem in 2017 with harvests of 52.2 kg/m² in aquaponics and 50.9 kg/m² in conventional production. In addition, the rate of marketable fruits was increased in aquaponics when compared with hydroponics due to the fact that in hydroponics significant lower fruits were affected by blossom-end rot (BER) which is a physiological disorder of the plants.
Fruit parameters were compared in both systems; the very important health-promoting compounds lycopene and ß-carotene did not differ significantly between aquaponics and conventional hydroponics. The content of soluble solids (SSC) was in the same range in aquaponics and single hydroponics. It could be shown in flavour tests that the sensory properties of tomatoes from aquaponics were not negatively affected. No significant differences in sensory properties between tomatoes from single hydroponic and aquaponics (where tomatoes are irrigated with fish water) were found (Fig. 54).
The usefulness of two different irrigation technologies for aquaponics has been evaluated: a) growing on rock wool with a drip irrigation system b) applying cross flow NFT technology. The results proved that a very efficient removal of organic solids from RAS water have to be ensured if drip irrigation is planned, otherwise NFT should be preferred for aquaponic applications (Fig. 47 and Fig. 48).
The plant monitoring system growWatch was used in the hydroponic part for continuous monitoring of greenhouse and crop conditions (Fig. 49). The resulting weekly/daily reports and advises were sent to the operators of the demo systems and used to optimise the tomato production. The advantage of using a growWatch system compared to a regular climate computer is that the climate data are actually measured between the plants instead of a fixed location in the greenhouse. Furthermore it is able to directly measure plant activities such as photosynthesis activity. Also climate and plant related parameters can be calculated by using data from multiple sensors (Fig. 50).
The INAPRO demonstration systems reached a plant production capacity of: Waren - 4.5 t; Murcia - 6.8 t; Rumbeke-Beitem - 4.7 t; and Shouguang - 15 t tomato, 22 t herbs, 28.4 t celery, and 3 t pepper.
___ WATER CONSUMPTION ___
One main reason to apply recirculation systems and moreover aquaponic systems is saving the limited environmental resource water and avoiding its pollution with nutrients and contaminants. Therefore the water consumption of the implemented INAPRO demonstration systems was of foremost importance in evaluation and judgement of the applied technology.
The water consumption rates per unit fish produced, per unit food produced, and in relation to the fish/plant (tomato) ratio (FP ratio) were evaluated during the systems operation. The water amounts required for fish production were differing largely between Waren and Murcia corresponding to the fish species chosen with different water quality demands and possible different stocking densities. Furthermore a technical accident with the gas generator occurred in Murcia leading to fish losses and impaired growth and so artificially enhanced the water consumption related to the fish harvest. Therefore Murcia could not reach the planned low water consumption in 2017, whereas Waren could raise the fish with 146 l/kg. The latter value has to be seen as very realistic for high-tech recirculation systems and is comparable with professional commercial RAS. The water consumption of plant production was also within the limits of intensive greenhouse tomato producing facilities with 61 l/kg in Waren and slightly higher in Murcia with 74 l/kg caused by the warmer climatic conditions.
The amount of fish water double used for the greenhouse plants production is the transfer water. The different greenhouse and production conditions lead to a different rate of transfer water/ total water consumption. For 2017 the water re-usage by the hydroponic system was for Murcia 32% and Waren 16%.
Realistic scenario calculations based on all results and experiences from the aquaponic demonstration farms in appropriately dimensioned RAS-GH systems with fish : tomato (FT) harvest rates of 1:3 and a possible water re-usage of around ca. 100% transfer water, resulting in a water consumption of 38 50 l/kg food (fish and tomatoes) (Fig. 56).
___ ENERGY CONSUMPTION / PRODUCTION ___
Different energy supply solutions were tested in the INAPRO demonstration objects considering the local conditions and available resources and opportunities (Fig. 21).
In Waren (DE) powerful electric grid and gas connections were available but heating was calculated to be necessary during longer times. So a heating demand controlled combined heat and power unit (CHP) was installed as main supply supported by photovoltaics and grid usage during no-heating/ no-sunshine times. The surplus electrical energy was sold to the close by fish processing facility.
The Murcia (ES) demo facility is located in a rural landscape with weak electric power grid, solar energy is available but local usage is limited to 10 kW according to Spanish legislations. The solution was electric grid supported by a respective photovoltaic solution and a liquid gas electricity-generator for peak demands and necessary cooling.
The object in Rumbeke-Beitem (BE) is situated at the area of a large agricultural research and education facility with the opportunity to use biogas from an existing unit. A powerful electric grid connection was also able to be used.
The system in Shouguang is part of a larger agricultural vegetable producing company where multiple energy sources were available from the whole facility: electric grid as well as solar power, biogas, wind energy and biofuel from own production. Because of the alternating demand of heating and cooling power even the installation of a heat pump system (GSHP) was decided.
A special case in energy consumption was the cooling of the greenhouse compartments necessary during hot summer days in Spain, Germany and China. At the recent state of technology this could only be realised by vapour-compression chillers, they are expensive and energy consuming. Cooling needed 35-50% of the total energy consumption of the system related to the climatic conditions. During cooling times the technology can additionally regain evapotranspirated water from the greenhouse for re-using in the RAS. Possible improvements in energy management solutions for aquaponic facilities are described in the section Ecological and Economical Performance.
___ MONITORING AND CONTROL ___
The management and control of the INAPRO aquaponic systems is based on a management execution system (MES) that was applied to monitor and adjust the production conditions for the fish and plant units (Fig. 34). The MES is a sophisticated automated management and control system for water quality, intelligent feeding/nutrient supply decisions, fish/plant disease control, monitoring of food security conditions, remote control, and diagnosis concerning O2, pH, LC values and nutrient composition etc. It integrates signalling and online early warning in case of emergency or technical malfunctions. Thus it is a necessary and especially useful tool for aquaponics end users. The actions of the MES are based on data delivered by the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) subsystem (Fig. 33) which reads data from different sensors installed in the facility (e.g. Fig. 16).
The test specification for systems operation was set out in the INAPRO deliverable “D 4.2 Test specification for demonstration” and defined a target sensor list. On this basis a “data point list” was elaborated containing an overview of the implemented sensors, its characteristics, and the respective measuring points (Fig. 35). According to this “data point list” the measurements/ parameters/ occurrences were documented in an INAPRO MS-SQL Server database for interpretations and conclusions (Fig. 30).
Data on or around the crop are obtained by the new developed growWatch plant monitoring system. The resulting weekly/ daily reports and advises were used to optimise the tomato production (Fig. 49, Fig. 50).
For the Chinese demonstration system in Shouguang a special MES user interface was developed to support Chinese characters and language (Fig. 43 and Fig. 44).
=== URBAN SYSTEMS ===
One aim of INAPRO was the development and presentation of innovative and sustainable aquaponic solutions and their implementation in demonstration systems to convince various stakeholders of the advantages and practicability of this technology. An important step in this respect was accomplished by implementing and operating the urban INAPRO demonstration systems, involving them intensely in the projects dissemination activities at various places and opportunities towards interested partners and different stakeholders.
Four urban INAPRO demo systems were designed and constructed and deployed: version 1 & 2 of the mobile INAPRO-tower systems, a floating aquaponic system and a permanent version at the FEZ Berlin. Furthermore two table models were built and made available for exposition locations where space or weight limits did not allow one of the bigger urban systems.
All of these attracted a lot of interested people and organisations and the IGB is still getting requests to show them and present the INAPRO results and experiences. So these systems contributed essentially to the success of the projects dissemination and exploitation activities and the observable progress of aquaponics within the last few years (cf. D4.5).
An attractive and aesthetical object design and an easy management were important features of the urban system. The final art design of the urban demonstration systems was created by Ms Wenke Förster supervised by Prof J. Vietze from the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (University of Applied Sciences), Department Design and Culture (Fig. 22). The SME partners in the consortium were strongly involved into planning and constructing the urban systems.
The 1st compact model was most often used due to the practicable size and relatively low height and floor loading (tons per square meter when it is filled with water). The model of the system was presented e.g. at the exhibition “WEtransFORM” (Fig. 23), during the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften – The Long Night of Science” on 11th June 2016 (Fig. 86). At the 26th „MeLa“, trade exhibition for agriculture and nutrition, 2016 in Mühlen-Geez this model was presented to delegates and experts from policy and administration and general public from Germany and neighbouring European countries. The latest location is the still running exhibition “Food Revolution 5.0 - Design for Tomorrow’s Society” in Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin from 18th May to 30th September 2018 (Fig. 85).
The extended version is a further development of the compact version which was again mainly realised by project partner PAL on the basis of the drafts of Wenke Förster. The idea of the system design bases on the five-piece fruit chamber system of tomatoes. Inspired by the specific cross section the urban system offers a circular structure with a spherical shell. This version of the urban aquaponic system was e.g. displayed at the exhibition “Hortivation” (sister exhibition of the world's leading trade fair IPM ESSEN) in Kalkar in June 2016. During the Annual international EuroTier” in Hannover from 15th to 18th November 2016 the system was also displayed. EuroTier is one world leading trade fair for animal production, and attracts thousands of visitors interested in information on various products, systems, innovations and trends (Fig. 25). Furthermore, the system was presented during the “HUMAN FACTOR – Endless Prototyping” exhibition organised by Ars electronica in the premises of DRIVE. Volkswagen Group Forum in Berlin (Fig. 24).
Two more production oriented urban models were the version 3 of the urban aquaponic systems, designed as small scale floating aquaponic greenhouse for the use in calm water bodies (Fig. 26, Fig. 27, Fig. 28) and the container sized aquaculture RAS-solution attachable to existing greenhouses or even seasonally to open agricultural spaces (Fig. 29). The floating urban demonstration object was presented to various visitors of IGB, involved in presentations at end user seminars, the aquaponics IGB academy event and the IGB/HUB student education.
The urban systems and their utilisation were closely linked to the dissemination activities of INAPRO. As a straight response to these activities the consortium received many requests from interested parties reaching beyond the project time and it is planned to use and show the urban systems also in future events, e.g. it is planned to demonstrate the urban systems at the EXPO 2019 in Beijing.
The application of aquaponics in urban areas aroused great international interest and led to the formation of a new project team which successfully applied for the project CITYFOOD “Smart integrated multitrophic city food production systems – a water and energy saving approach for global urbanisation” funded within the Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative by the Belmont Forum and the JPI Urban Europe in Horizon 2020 (cf. D4.5 Fig. 94). All versions of the urban systems will further be used within follow-up projects as CITYFOOD and for continuing cooperation with end users and manufacturers.
=== INNOVATION CONCEPT AND STANDARDISATION ===
Based on the results from modelling and from the practical operation of the demonstration systems the innovation concept for water, energy and nutrients management in a sustainable and economic viable INAPRO system was developed focussing on standardised high technology production to be competitive with conventional single aquacultures (RAS) and single hydroponic systems.
The determination of standards was a crucial task following the analysis and evaluation of project results and went hand in hand with the refinements of the innovation concept. The standardised solutions developed by the project and those concerning future innovative aquaponic production systems are described in the following sections.
___ PROCESS STANDARDS ___
Process standards are referring to the water, nutrient use and energy technologies of INAPRO with defined technological parameters.
--- Coupling principle for aquaponics
The main principle of this concept is that the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and the hydroponic system (HS) were coupled unidirectional by a one-way-valve or a similar operating solution but operated in separate water cycles. This double recirculation aquaponic system (DRAPS) allows regulating RAS and HS independently thus providing optimum conditions for both production units (Fig. 3).
--- Production control
The complex INAPRO sensor system includes effective information monitoring techniques and high level of online water quality and greenhouse environment monitoring and control. This system has to be applied to monitor the variance of dissolved oxygen, pH, water temperature, water level, soil moisture, air moisture and temperature, solar radiation and different other environmental, technical and technological parameters online.
___ PRODUCTION STANDARDS ___
The production standards are related to the technical construction and design of the INAPRO systems.
--- Aquaponic system configuration (Fig. 13)
Water effluent from the fish tanks (FT) is directed to a mechanical filter (MF) to hold back the solids. Settled sludge from the MF is directed to a post-purge unit (PP) for secondary removal of solids. The water from the MF flows to the pump sump (PS) where it is warmed to the set temperature. A biofilter (BF) for nitrification, O2 enrichment, and CO2 degassing takes water from the pump sump and passes it back, where the water is also disinfected by UV light. Finally, the process water is circulated from the PS back to the FTs. The RAS water recirculation rate should be at least one to three times per hour to ensure an optimal oxygen content of 60-80% saturation in the FTs. Concurrently CO2 and NH4 are removed from the fish tanks.
The plant unit receives water with dissolved nutrients from the RAS. This water is stored in a mixing tank (MT), the pH is adjusted, and missing nutrients are supplemented as fertiliser components in order to create optimal conditions for the plant species chosen to be produced. The adjusted nutrient solution from the MT is recirculated in collection tanks that feed either NFT or substrate trenches. The water which the plants transpire and evaporate is replaced by adding solution from the MT.
--- Component configuration
The components recommended for the use in aquaponic systems are compiled in D4.3 (Fig. 45).
--- Nitrogen dynamics
The predominant macronutrient recycled from the fish unit in aquaponics is nitrogen, mainly in the form of nitrate. For the N dynamics in aquaponics a mass-flow related model was developed. This model calculates how much nitrate is produced from 1 kg food and how many tomatoes can be fertilised with it (Fig. 46). The model can assist practitioners in optimising their facility. The addition of biopromoters during the first weeks of operation can improve the development of nitrification bacteria and accelerate the starting phase of aquaponics (Fig. 51).
--- Recommended ratio between fish and tomatoes
Only at a minimum mass ratio of 1:3 fish to tomatoes (kg fish: kg tomato) a total exploitation of fish water by the plants can be achieved. Further results from modelling and the experimental evaluation of the INAPRO demo systems lead to a recommended ratio between the production of fish and plants which is in the range of 1:3 to 1:5; but the fish species, the species dependent water demand by the plants, and the irrigation technology has to be taken into account
--- Water consumption
Within INAPRO an important aspect of the coupling of the RAS with the greenhouse is the dual usage of water. To maximise this effect the aim is to transfer preferably the whole quantity of RAS exchange water as fish waste water to the greenhouse for plant irrigation. Thus the sewage water is reduced dramatically. RAS water consumption per unit marketable fish produced has to be estimated at least with 150 l/kg, a value comparable to other high-tech recirculation aquacultures. The plants water consumption in an INAPRO system can be kept comparable to conventional greenhouse tomato producing facilities.
___ MANAGEMENT SYSTEM STANDARDS ___
The INAPRO management system standards have been refined throughout the whole project time (Fig. 36 - Fig. 44).
--- Management execution system (MES)
The INAPRO management system standards cover all aspects of the INAPRO system by integration of technological, organisational, financial, ICT and management approaches including a hardware / software platform and standards for automatic local and remote control of the system. Test parameters comprise different measurements like technical, technological, biological, chemical and productivity measures as described in the test specification (Fig. 35).To deal with the high complexity of professional aquaponics a continuous monitoring and evaluation of the entire production cycle by an integrated MES is strongly recommended (Fig. 34). Within the development of the management execution system (MES) the special needs of the potential end users were particularly and extensively considered. Thus the start-up of newcomers in the field of aquaponics can be assisted and promoted.
--- Production cyclogram
Production cyclograms for tilapia and catfish were developed to plan and manage the growth and harvest cycles of fish in the RAS. An additional production cyclogram for tomato production was elaborated and is available since 2017. The cyclograms fit the needs of end users and are necessary for the planning and realisation of a nutrient-balanced nearly continuous fish and plant production.
--- Energy management
For the development of an optimal energy management concept in a sustainable and economic viable INAPRO aquaponic system, a hybrid energy solution using locally available sources is recommended. The usable components are: PV, CHP, biogas, waste, heat sources, gas/fuel generators, gas/fuel boiler. The following parameters have been identified to be necessary to evaluate the energy management of aquaponic systems: energy demand for fish production, energy demand for greenhouse production system, energy demand for cooling, production CHP, production PV, power input from the grid, power sent to the grid, energy sent to the manufacturing and processing, boiler gas demand, heat demand, and CHP gas demand. Based on these data the developed models for efficient use of renewable energy can be calculated for different aquaponic systems.
By continuously integrating data loop-backs from the WPs 2, 3 and 4 the modelling approaches as well as the innovation concept has been further developed throughout the second and third project period. The innovation concept considers recent conditions and offers tools to calculate and propose optimised solutions not only for the running demonstration cases but even for potential end users (Fig. 33, Fig. 34).
___ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SYSTEM OPERATION ___
The INAPRO partners organised several seminars and excursions directed to end users, manufacturers and to educational institutions to inform about the INAPRO aquaponic system and obtained various feedbacks from a large spectrum of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants while discussing benefits, opportunities, risks and bottlenecks of aquaponics (Fig. 90), technicalities linked to the construction of aquaponic farms, marketing and distribution of aquaponic products. Based on the experiences and the test results of the running INAPRO demonstration systems it was possible to summarise the key issues necessary to successfully run a system and offer approaches for interested, but only partially experienced end users, to demonstrate in how far the system can be individually adapted and give advice to take care of possible risks.
=== ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMICAL PERFORMANCE ===
___ LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS ___
A thorough life-cycle analysis (LCA) was made and verified the viability and determined the ecologic and economic boundary conditions of the system thereby delivering arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages (Fig. 55).
The life-cycle analysis data are modelled within the categories of potential impact:
- Global Warming Potential (GWP),
- Water Depletion Potential (WDP),
- Freshwater Eutrophication Potential (FEP),
- Terrestrial Acidification Potential (TAP),
- Cumulative Energy Demand (CED).
The two process chains ‘feed production’ and ‘electricity production’ have the first or second rank in almost all impact categories and are the main contributors to the environmental burdens of the INAPRO system. The water related process chain 'freshwater' has a contribution of more than 50% to the Water Depletion potential (cf. D4.3).
___ COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS ___
The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as the systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a project was performed with the data from the Waren (DE) demonstration facility as example (cf. D4.3). A finally recommendable solution for the locations Waren and Murcia would be a fish production of 15 t/a and a triple sized greenhouse area with verified tomato harvests of 40 kg/m² which could gain 45 t/a tomatoes, achieving the ratio of 1:3 for fish/tomato and re-using the full amount of RAS transfer-water available from fish for the greenhouse production. Such a system could earn a yearly profit of ca. 100 T€ and achieve return of investment times between 8 and 10 years. The economic performance will however be quite sensitive to changes in the purchase price at which the produced goods are sold.
Reaching and convincing potential end users and ensuring the market uptake of the INAPRO system was one of the main goals of the project. The gained relevant information for potential end users of the INAPRO system includes experiences and conclusions about the functionality as well as economic data of the INPRO system gained from recorded data of the demo farms and extended by scenario analyses (Fig. 56, Fig. 57). Intensive contacts with possible end users, business stakeholders, entrepreneurs, growers and apprentices, the project partners have been established by the extensive dissemination activities (see next chapter).
___ FISH FEEDING STRATEGY ___
For the European and worldwide agriculture sector increasing its sustainability is an important task to mitigate the consequences of climate change and to prevent the depletion of valuable resources. Therefore, when designing or improving sustainable agricultural concepts, a holistic approach should be the final aim. In terms of aquaponic systems it is important to address not only the increase in system efficiency but also its input with feed being an important one.
The production of fish in aquaculture, including aquaponic systems, strongly depends on fish meal and fish oil, mainly derived from capture fisheries for the production of feed. Since the aquaculture sector is the fastest growing sector in animal food production, the pressure on fish stocks generally exploited for the production of fish meal and fish oil is increasing and sustainable alternatives to substitute these essential ingredients are necessary. Thus, a sustainable feed for aquaponic production is important to increase the overall sustainability of these systems and to reduce the pressure on global fish stocks.
Within the ASTAF-PRO project, this topic was experimentally addressed. Fish meal was partially or fully substituted e.g. with extracted pea protein and housefly maggot meal and the results were very promising. Nevertheless it is arguable that valuable space and resources are depleted to grow plants, that are often produced in intensive, non-sustainable monocultures, for the substitution of fish meal in the production of fish feed instead of for direct human consumption. Additionally, fish feed is often optimized for species-specific requirements to achieve optimal growth and the choice of fish that should be produced in aquaculture determines the feed. There is still some research necessary to determine the overall environmental sustainability (extended LCA) of different fish feed formulations, furthermore the recent legal regulations at the starting point of INAPRO did not allow for insects in farm animals feeding.
INAPRO focussed on the demonstration of aquaponics technology on a practical level, so it could not treat these basic research questions simultaneously. Conventional commercial feed containing fish meal and fish oil was used in all INAPRO facilities. To reduce the environmental impact of fish feed a production model of the fish cycle with optimised growth-related feeding regimes was elaborated (cf. deliverable D1.4 section 2.1.6).
The above mentioned Life Cycle Analyses (LCA) of the aquaponic INAPRO facility in Waren (Germany) revealed, that the fish meal used for fish feed production contributes to over 25% of the carbon foot print of the aquaponic facility. Reducing or replacing fish meal or fish oil in the feed will have a huge beneficial effect on the overall sustainability of future aquaponic systems, but only if the growth of the fish is not compromised and the substitute has a much lower carbon footprint compared to fish meal.
As a direct reaction to this outcome, the findings from the INAPRO project were integrated in a new project proposal for the project CUBES circle (cf. section Exploitation) where the INAPRO coordinator Prof. Kloas will be responsible for the FishCUBE sub-project. This project examines, next to other aquaponic relevant topics, the potential of insect larvae as a fish meal substitute to increase the sustainability of aquaponic production. The production of insects requires only minimal amounts of water and other resources and is one of the most promising candidates as substitute in commercial fish feed next to the use of by-products e.g. from the food industry, that are otherwise disposed. Besides, many other research groups worldwide are working on this topic and many successful examples in the scientific literature are present, even though not commercially available yet.
___ ENERGY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ___
Energy consumption is beside salaries and fish feed one of the main cost items and environmental load factors (cf. section Operation, long–term data acquisition, and test period results). Information about energy solutions modelled and tested is published in the deliverables D1.4 and D2.3 of the INAPRO project, finally applied solutions were summarised in the Third Periodic Report section 4.1.4.4. Results of demonstration objects operation and final evaluations additionally lead to concluding considerations in respect to future aquaponic facilities:
From an ecological perspective based on the assessment of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) the production of electrical energy necessary for the aquaponic facility is the main factor. Heating and cooling are thereby the most energy intensive processes in the facilities operation. Cooling alone needed 35 50% of the total energy consumption of the system related to the climatic conditions and season. Heating made up for another 25-40% estimated by subtracting cooling plus pump and illumination power values from total energy consumed.
For the implementation of a sustainable production in addition to the ecological perspective the investment and running production costs are utmost important to achieve a cost effective production and viable system.
Especially cooling and air conditioning of the greenhouse during summer periods consumes a lot of electricity and even comes with high investment costs when using the current vapour-compression chillers technology. New technologies like waste heat or solar-driven ad- or absorption chiller machines open up possibilities for reducing the running costs drastically but are at the moment still too expensive and not yet easily implementable. Another perspective would arise from combined desalination-cooling applications which are still under scientific development and were planned to be explored within a follow-up PRIMA-call project in cooperation between IGB, Tilamur, autosoft and the TU-Berlin which did not yet pass the 2018th proposal evaluation but was encouraged to be submitted again. Anyway, this approach is planned to be continued in further research.
From an ecological perspective the use of alternative energy sources in aquaculture for closed recirculating systems and for air conditioning of greenhouses are always worthwhile.
Decisions on the use of small wind turbines, photovoltaic and solar thermal systems can only be taken individually on the basis of comprehensive analysis of the site-specific conditions regarding the suitability and profound planning as well as cost-benefit analyses as mentioned in the Third Periodic Report section 4.1.4.4. An example for this is the solar power utilisation in Spain where the demo facility is located in a rural landscape with weak electric power grid, solar energy is available but local usage is limited to 10 kW according to Spanish legislations.
An energy effective operation was furthermore ensured by the developed management execution system (MES) including a SCADA control system architecture and integrating a greenhouse control system. The MES regulated heating, cooling, aeration and pumping in the fish system, feeding of fish as well as ventilation, water and nutrients dosage in the greenhouse respective to system demands and corresponding to the production cyclogram planning.
Potential Impact:
=== IMPACT ===
INAPRO followed the goal to facilitate, support and speed up the development and deployment of innovative solutions to water management and food production challenges and create market opportunities for these innovations inside and outside of Europe. The project succeeded therein by mobilising main players from industry, manufacturers and end user SMEs and several related stakeholders to promote and propagate the innovative technological applications of INAPRO in the branches of water management and food production.
Within the project four demonstration farms with a long-term stable operation, a marketable output and a broad dissemination outreach were established in Germany, Belgium, Spain and China. These objects were successfully tested, analysed and evaluated. The obtained data and results served as basis to elaborate an innovation concept for future professional commercial aquaponic farms.
The ecological and economical evaluation of the operating aquaponic demonstration farms could proof and verify the viability and confirmed a lowered environmental impact of these systems thereby delivering arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages. Being healthy and environmentally friendly, INAPRO products enjoy a decisive market advantage. The development of rural and urban aquaponic farms in Europe based on the INAPRO solutions will foster green growth and will create new jobs in the highly competitive food production branch. Thanks to a highly efficient reuse of water, the system requires a comparatively low fresh water input representing the perfect solution for rural areas suffering from water scarcity. Furthermore, INAPRO responds to the growing demand for seafood without increasing the pressure on global overexploited marine fish stocks.
The INAPRO project was well recognised and spotlighted by the EC Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) https://cordis.europa.eu/search/result_en?q=inapro). Several contributions referred to the start, the achievements over the project time and the successful finalisation of INAPRO. This helped a lot in connecting to several EU and worldwide funded programmes and initiatives.
The project has particularly aimed at supporting the Innovation Union with the EIP on Water as one of its key initiatives and has consequently been linked to the EIP Water Action group WIRE “Water & Irrigated agriculture Resilient Europe” (cf. section exploitation).
=== DISSEMINATION ===
Dissemination has been an essential part of the INAPRPO project as it is generally accepted that S & T results need to be communicated to all relevant stakeholders to enable the project to leave a long-lasting impact. Hence an own work package (WP5) with 12 deliverables was assigned to dissemination activities within the project.
As a major focus of the project, the permanent exchange with policy and business stakeholders regarding new results and project outcomes was essential to promote the further development in the field of aquaponics. The INAPRO project has established extended cooperation to local authorities, politicians and companies. Moreover the project team has received regularly inquiries from potential investors who plan to set up aquaponic systems.
Because of the addressed field of water and energy saving sustainable and healthy food production, the INAPRO project build up interest of a growing number of stakeholders in the water sector and in the agricultural/ aquacultural field as well as in the scientific and industrial community, in terms of technical development and business opportunities.
All dissemination activities were connected within one work-package and based on a detailed dissemination plan which has been elaborated at the start of the project. The dissemination activities comprised: communication and cooperation with projects and initiatives; information and communication measures towards policy; scientific internal and external knowledge exchange, discussions and publications; seminars, visits and showcases, exhibitions, fairs and advertisements and publications for end users and manufacturers as well as various measures of all mentioned kinds for the general public.
The most important step towards commercialisation of the INAPRO aquaponic system was mainly accomplished by the demo objects demonstrating practical usability, sustainability and economic competitiveness. Especially the demonstration activities have been closely connected to the dissemination and exploitation activities The INAPRO aquaponic systems were used to demonstrate practical usability, environmental sustainability and economic competitiveness. To increase the awareness and appreciation for the need, potential and benefits of the INAPRO aquaponic system facts and records of the successful implementation and operation of the INAPRO systems were disseminated to policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders. The objective was to convince them of the great potential in water and carbon footprint reduction and thereby mobilise them to promote the innovative INAPRO system.
___ PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS ___
INAPRO was an innovation and demonstration project but even contained a considerable part of research and development and all those activities together led to a valuable output of scientific publications. In total there are recently 18 published and two submitted peer-reviewed scientific article and several more in preparation. Two public available PhD theses have been defended, one is still in progress. Furthermore one MSc and three BSc theses were elaborated within the project.
___ DISSEMINATION TO POLICY STAKEHOLDERS ___
An increasing number of visits have taken place at the INAPRO demonstration sites and in particular, the Waren site has been visited by a number of Members of the European Parliament on the 19th July 2017 (Fig. 78). The visit took place in the framework of a mission organised by the Committee of Fisheries to the county Mecklenburg - Western Pomerania in order to meet and exchange with several stakeholders from the region about fisheries and aquaculture related issues. This visit proved to be a great opportunity to present aquaponics and the INAPRO system to interested policy-makers. Other visits have been addressed specifically towards potential end users in order to show them how the INAPRO system works and save resources and to reply to their questions (Fig. 79, Fig. 87).
Several members of the European Parliament were met in order to strengthen the debates on sustainability, water scarcity and food security and to get those topics on the political agenda. A major role played the discussion on the sustainability and the possibilities for aquaponics to receive the eco-certification status. Some MEPs that were already informed about INAPRO contacted the project management in 2018 to harness the project ideas and outcome during the elaboration phase of a European Parliament INI report “Towards a sustainable and competitive European aquaculture sector: current status and future challenges”. This report, which was drafted by the Fisheries Committee, was adopted by the European Parliament in 2018 and, thanks to the support of many MEPs, contains positive articles acknowledging the important role that sustainable technologies including aquaponics could play for the improvement of food security and some calls on the Commission and the Member States to invest in research, studies and pilot projects for innovative, future-oriented, environmentally responsible practices such as aquaponics.
In January 2018, Prof. Kloas, INAPRO coordinator, moderated a panel discussion entitled “Can wastewater contribute to food security?" during the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture that took place in Berlin. The other speakers on the panel were Dr. Marlos de Souza (FAO), Dr. Sarantuyaa Zandaryaa (UNESCO ), Dr. Steven N. Schonberger (World Bank) and Dr. Sophie Boisson (WHO ) (Fig. 82) .
___ COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES ___
For the promotion of the INAPRO technology also the local authorities and businesses were sensitised, e.g. INAPRO participated at a networking meeting organised by the Landesfischereiverband Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Country Fisheries Association) to discuss about the possibilities of catfish farming and to spread the idea of producing them within aquaponics.
Mariano Vidal (Tilamur) presented the Murcia demonstration facility at the Spanish Day of Aquaculture in Madrid and explained goals and achievements of the INAPRO project for the broad audience (Fig. 80).
___ END USER WORKSHOPS AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES AT THE RURAL INAPRO SYSTEMS ___
The INAPRO partners organised seminars directed to end users to inform and obtain feedbacks from a wide range of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants (Fig. 75). The several competitive advantages in comparison to conventional systems were highlighted in the seminars: System manufacturers and facility operators in the agricultural and aquacultural sectors stand to benefit, since coupling the production of fish and vegetables in one system led to a more resource friendly and efficient food production. It was highlighted that in aquaponic systems much less water is needed to produce the same amount of fish and plants, the environmental impact is drastically reduced due to waste avoidance and nutrient recycling and finally, additional fertiliser can be clearly reduced.
Guided tours and training activities for SMEs took place directly at the INAPRO demonstration sites (Fig. 76, Fig. 83). The intention behind these activities was to create new market and job opportunities including a reduction of European and worldwide barriers.
___ EXHIBITION, FAIRS, EVENTS AND ADVERTISEMENTS ___
The INAPRO partners took part at several fairs and exhibitions (Fig. 89). The INAPRO project was e.g. featured as part of the exhibition stands in the framework of the Horizon 2020 Info Week event on Societal Challenge 2 ‘Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy’. The Info Week, organised by European Commission and the Research Executive Agency, took place from the 14th to the 17th November 2017 in Brussels (Fig. 66). The ambitions of the project met perfectly well with the recent EU strategies under the Horizon 2020 framework to face the challenges of the dramatic development of the water resource situation in Europe and worldwide. INAPRO demonstrated links and synergies with related major water investment/implementation projects at local, regional or national level to help leverage the demand side.
At the EuroTier fair in Hanover 2016, the "Human Factor – Endless Prototyping" exhibition at the Drive VW-Group Forum in Berlin, and the Fish International trade exhibition 2017 INAPRO was showcased with one of the mobile urban demonstration objects and explained the project goals, activities and opportunities for a water saving and sustainable agriculture of the future (Fig. 84).
At the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften” in Germany the INAPRO project was shown part of the scientific advance in sustainable future food production, tomatoes from the aquaponic farms could be tasted by the visitors (Fig. 86, Fig. 88).
___ ELABORATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF DISSEMINATION TOOLS ___
The INAPRO consortium has used a wide range of dissemination tools to interact with and inform stakeholders about the project goals, results and final outcome.
Policy briefs have been written to inform and convince political stakeholders and decision-makers (Fig. 70).
The numbers of interested people reaching to the INAPRO project through the website (Fig. 58) and the social media channels have continued to increase over the project time. News and pictures about the INAPRO project alongside with articles describing or mentioning INAPRO have been published via Facebook and twitter (Fig. 60, Fig. 61). Up to date, INAPRO’s Facebook page gathers 1,111 ‘likes’.
Fact sheets (Fig. 59, Fig. 65), a project logo (Fig. 1), a leaflet (Fig. 64, Fig. 74), several press releases and 6 newsletters (Fig. 69) were designed and written in cooperation of AlienorEU (responsible for dissemination), the coordinator IGB and the local partners of the project team.
Several general and specialised articles have been published based on INAPRO newsletter and leaflets to inform the public about the potential of the INAPRO technology. Press releases have been published in international media to communicate the project progress (Fig. 62), e.g. to inform about production start at the INAPRO systems and project activities e.g. the visit of a group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to the INAPRO demonstration site in Waren. More than 125 public press articles about INAPRO were published in languages: English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Dutch and French (Fig. 63).
The INAPRO newsletter was sent to a list of around 590 subscribers. The list includes many policy-makers, business stakeholders, members of the scientific community, aquaponics enthusiasts and end users. The INAPRO 3D- model (Fig. 73) was showcased during several events, fairs and exhibitions e.g. the EXPO 2017 in Astana (Kazakhstan) at the and high level policy event “Bioeconomy” in Brussels in 2017 (Fig. 81).
An INAPRO movie clip was created to explain the principle and the goals and outcomes of the project. It can be downloaded from the webpage and has been presented at many expositions, fairs and events (Fig. 67, Fig. 68).
Information tables at the demonstration sites show the achievement and explain the project’s activities and achievements as well as the distinctiveness of production and products (Fig. 71). Some gadgets were even be used to be distributed mainly to the general public (Fig. 72).
=== EXPLOITATION ===
The mentioned widespread dissemination activities of all partners were the starting point for further exploitation of the results and achievements of the INAPRO project.
___ MARKET ANALYSIS ___
To ensure the successful application of the INAPRO system around the world, the partners have conducted a market analysis focused on different regions (Central and Southern Europe, Scandinavia and Asia). Economic feasibility and environmental sustainability are the desired benchmarks of the INAPRO aquaponics performance (Fig. 52 Fig. 53). Starting from this goal a SWOT analysis cumulates the main results of each country-specific analysis of the external and internal factors of INAPRO aquaponics seen as important to characterise the chance of INAPRO aquaponics on the market (Fig. 90). To improve the likelihood of the market access of the INAPRO system both common and specific recommendations for the different regions were derived from analysed data. The benefits of the INAPRO technology (economical, environmental, and societal) were demonstrated to different stakeholders (Fig. 91). It was highlighted that sustainability issues are INAPRO’s biggest strength help to face the threats of the market. Dissemination also comprised questionnaire based consumer surveys for Central and Southern Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. To adopt INAPRO systems widely, the benefit has to be shown and communicated to each relevant customer group.
___ EU AND WORLDWIDE FUNDED PROJECTS AND INITIATIVE ___
Several European funding mechanisms and projects have been identified and long-lasting cooperation has been established. The INAPRO partners successfully commenced further synergies and long- lasting cooperation with the several EU and international funded initiatives and projects.
All partners build up connections and synergies or were actively contacted by major commercial water and food related investment/implementation projects from local to international level to help leverage and praxis-transfer the project results.
EIP WATER ACTION GROUP
INAPRO is registered and participated as networking partner in the EIP Water Action group WIRE “Water & Irrigated agriculture Resilient Europe”. An extensive cooperation with the members of the Action Group has been established. Since October 2017, INAPRO has been included in the leaflet of the Action Group which is widely disseminated during conferences, workshops and events. WIRE contributes to make use of innovation to promote a more sustainable water management and more effective return of investments in agriculture. The goals defined by INAPRO project are fully in line with the priorities set out by the action group WIRE such as: 1) efficient water reuse in irrigation, 2) energy saving in irrigation, and 3) integrated agricultural water management under drought. WIRE helps customising existing or upcoming innovation to the farmers’ and growers’ needs, and to facilitate innovation uptake in the complex, multi-faceted irrigated agriculture reality and market (https://www.eip-water.eu/WIRE/).
PROJECT FERTINNOWA
The main objective of the FERTINNOWA thematic network is to create a meta-knowledge database of innovative technologies and practices for the fertigation of horticultural crops. FERTINNOWA will also build a knowledge exchange platform to evaluate existing and novel technologies (innovation potential, synergies, gaps, barriers) for fertigated crops and ensure wide dissemination to all stakeholders involved of the most promising technologies and best practices. The project is aimed at collecting, exchanging, showcasing and transferring innovative water management solutions and best practices in order to improve water use efficiency and quality and to reduce the environmental impact of fertigated horticultural production systems. INAPRO has been added to the list of stakeholders to be consulted in the framework of the project (https://www.fertinnowa.com/project/).
COST ACTION FA1305 EU AQUAPONICS HUB
Intensive cooperation has been established with the COST Action FA1305 EU Aquaponics Hub. The EU Aquaponics Hub focuses on three primary systems in three settings; 1) 'cities and urban areas' - urban agriculture aquaponics, 2) 'developing country systems' - devising systems and technologies for food security for local people and 3) 'industrial scale aquaponics' - providing competitive systems delivering cost effective, healthy and sustainable local food in the EU. Several INAPRO partners were active participating members of this action and even attended the “aquaponics.biz” conference on aquaponic SMEs that took place in Murcia on the 19th April 2017. On that occasion, the members of the Aquaponics Hub participated in a field visit to the INAPRO demonstration site managed by Tilamur in Murcia (ES) (https://euaquaponicshub.com/).
PROJECT ANNIE INC. HELPING CHILDREN AND ADULTS TO HELP THEMSELVES
Started in 2016 this Erasmus project and aims to set up a network of educational institutions, rural and urban aquaponic companies, regional governments and local authorities in order to establish aquaponics training centres. The project is especially addressed to youngsters, unemployed and disabled people, lifelong learners and other categories who do not fit easily in the labour market. In April 2017, around 50 ANNIE-participants visited the INAPRO demonstration site in Murcia (https://www.projectannie.org/).
PROJECT TRANSFER AQUAPONIC INNOVATIVE ECO-TECHNOLOGY TO EGYPT
This project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation builds upon the previous IGB-invention of a system to combine sustainable aquaculture and hydroponics. The objectives are to create the Al-Azhar University’s first aquaponic greenhouse in Egypt, which sells aquaponic technology and produces both organic vegetables and fish for educational purposes. The project also aimed to provide the integrated junior researchers with a unique hands-on international experience centred on sustainability issues. At the same time, this study also attempts to evaluate the growth performance and nutrient utilisation of Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus fed by magmeal diets as a cheaper alternative of fishmeal (https://www.researchgate.net/project/Transfer-Aquaponic-Innovative-Ecotechnology-to-Egypt-for-Sustainable-Aquaculture-and-Food-Production).
PROJECT KIKABONI FARM/ KENYA AQUAPONICS
The project will introduce multi-loop aquaponics to address (urban) food security issues in Kenya, using a peri-urban demonstration farm. The core goal of the proposed project is to develop and evaluate the business case for aquaponics in Kenya and other low and middle income countries. Food production systems that consume limited amounts of water, fertilisers, pesticides or labour, that preserve nutrients and are not dependent on soil fertility, have the potential to contribute substantially to food security whilst improving small-scale farmer incomes. Multi-loop aquaponics is able to combine all these factors. New to Africa, this project proposes to introduce this technology to Kenya to demonstrate its potential whilst designing commercial pathways for scaling. This project will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of aquaponics to farmers and farming organisations (e.g. cooperatives) in Kenya, and encourage them to engage in this form of (urban) agri-business (http://kikaboni-farm.com/).
AQUAPONICS - CLIMATE SMART SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE FOOD SECURITY IN NAMIBIA
The Namibian government is currently conducting its re-greening policy and is also confronted with a need for policies concerning the challenges on food security, water shortage, and rising unemployment figures. The multi-loop aquaponic system can contribute significantly to these challenges. Multi-loop aquaponics is a water-efficient production system and makes it possible to grow food in the most arid areas of the world using novel desalination technologies and solar power. A 500-1000 m² system serves as a first pilot and as a showcase, developed together with Namibian stakeholders from government, research, and private sector. The pilot system is used for fine-tuning the system to the local circumstances, both physically and socio-economically. By including the stakeholders, conditions are created for scaling as soon as the system has shown its merits in Namibia (http://www.developonics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Aquaponics-in-Namibia-WUR.pdf).
BELMONT AND EU FUNDED PROJECT CITYFOOD
Members of the INAPRO consortium and other partners successfully applied for a Belmont and EU funded transnational project starting in 2018 (Fig. 94). The Belmont Forum is an international partnership that mobilises funding of environmental change research and accelerates its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability.
Feeding rapidly growing urban populations is a global challenge, which strains the Food-Water-Energy Nexus through increasing water and energy demands and environmental pollution. CITYFOOD provides innovative solutions to this daunting environmental challenge by integrating aquaponics (aqua-agriculture systems) into cities on a broader scale. Multitrophic food production systems optimise flows of food, water, energy, and waste while minimising resource needs, thus contributing to sustainable urban infrastructure. CITYFOOD connects diverse countries and contexts, each with their own challenges, within the framework set by the Belmont Forum and European Union 2020 strategies for sustainable and resilient cities (https://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/project/cityfood/).
PROJECT CUBES CIRCLE
The aim of the project CUBES circle which is already accepted and will get funding from the BMBF is to develop an innovative agricultural system for future production of high-value food (cf. section Ecological and economical performance). This agricultural system will not only be integrated into societal structures, but will also use synergies with established systems like urban settlements. A proposition for the success of such a production system is that it accepted by society and that it complies with sustainability criteria. INAPRO partners and members of the INAPRO project advisory committee belong to the project consortium of CUBES Circle.
The project´s vision of agricultural systems of the future is based on the idea that food will be produced in connected, mutually communicating and standardized production units, the so-called CUBES. Those CUBES are the basis for a closed food production system, which overcomes the weaknesses of earlier agricultural production systems by using ISO-standards, stackable units and a bio-cybernetic regulation approach. At the same time, the system integrates easily into the urban future. Due to its mobile nature, adaptability to a changing environment and an inherent scalability, the CUBES can be implemented in urban, rural and even desertified sites. Principles of closed cultivation methods will be integrated into a new process chain and the individual elements of the chain are intelligently connected and regulated. Thereby, synergies like the „Triple Zero®" concept can be used, enabling a production without additives and avoiding emissions and waste. (https://www.cubescircle.de/en/home/).
___ DEVELOPING COMMERCIAL PROJECTS ___
Cooperation between INAPRO partners and company stakeholders directly initialised several commercial projects that are recently in developing stage following the way paved by the INAPRO project and its demonstration farms.
LOCAL INITIATIVES AND PROJECTS
Several local projects were inspired by the basic idea and especially the successful larger scaled demonstrations within INAPRO as e.g. ROOF WATER-FARM (FKZ: 033W012, http://www.roofwaterfarm.com/ 2013); Topfarmers Berlin (https://www.stadtfarm.de/ 2015), Gemüsefischer. (https://www.holzmarkt.com/ 2015)
CHINESE COMMERCIAL FARM
In China the INAPRO principle found a lot of attention by commercial agriculturists. They build a second commercial farm additional to the described demonstration object in Shouguang and already made plans for an even bigger project INAPRO Town in the district Shandong (Fig. 92).
BELGIAN BIGH FOODMET FARM
The INAPRO partner Inagro initialised together with BIGH (Building Integrated GreenHouses) a large Hydroponics/Aquaponics project “Aquavlan2”. The built farm combines a 2000 m2 high-tech greenhouse and a 2000 m2 productive outdoor garden on the roof of Foodmet market hall, in the heart of Brussels, at the famous Abattoir site and consists of a state of the art aquaponic system where fish, fruits, vegetables and herbs are grown in a closed & zero waste loop (Fig. 93).
INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL PROMOTERS
Several industrial and financial promoters of the idea were attracted by INAPROs disseminated results and experiences and actively built up contacts with the goal to initialise further large commercial aquaponic projects at European and international level that are recently still in planning and development phase:
--- The Revobis Engineering Office for Energy- and Water-management plans in cooperation with IGB to equip e-traffic PV-power stations by using the surplus energy with aquaponic production units and attach restaurants to deliver sustainable and fresh food and combine this with the adventure of a transparent “Glas-House” factory (http://www.revobis.de/partner/).
--- The FWE Energy Solutions GmbH hired one person from INAPRO partner PAL to enhance their own competencies in aquaculture and initialise further market oriented activities combining aquaculture with sustainable agriculture and renewable energy solutions (e.g. biogas) in cooperation with IGB and possibly further partners (http://www.fwe.energy/).
--- The Swiss ocean v AG and INNOSAG GmbH contacted IGB for acting as scientific partner in commercial aquaponic projects intended to start in South-Africa Brits (Northwest province) and Paarl (Western Cape). In the case of successful implementation there are perspectives and financial budgets available for further large projects in African regions. (http://oceanv.ch/)
All these activities served as important steps towards the market introduction of INAPRO. The publicised achieved results, the distributed ideas and the solutions found will open up new market opportunities and overcome market barriers. By communicating the opportunities to end users, manufacturers, policy and the general public INAPRO opens a promising perspective for future sustainable aquaponic applications worldwide.
List of Websites:
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Websites:
http://www.inapro-project.eu/
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/111413_en.html
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Contact:
Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries
Müggelseedamm 310, 12587 Berlin, Germany
https://www.igb-berlin.de/
Prof. Werner Kloas,
Head of Department Ecophysiology and Aquaculture
+49 (0)30 64181 630
werner.kloas@igb-berlin.de
Dr. Daniela Baganz
Senior scientist
Department Biology and Ecology of Fishes
+49 (0)30 64141628
baganz@igb-berlin.de
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Dissemination:
AliénorEU sprl
11 rue de l’industrie 1000 Brussels, Belgium
http://www.alienoreu.com/
Elise Regairaz,
Founding Partner, Consultant in Environmental policies
+32 491 51 23 28
elise.regairaz@alienoreu.com
Sofia Minero,
EU Affairs Manager
+32 493 21 64 56
sofia.minero@alienoreu.com
INAPRO provides an approach for resource efficient water, energy and nutrient management in innovative aquaponic systems for professional application to contribute remarkably to global food security in the 21st century.
The project objective was to mobilise industry, member states and stakeholders to promote this new technical and technological sustainable solution which allows a nearly emission free food production.
INAPRO aquaponics features a water-saving combination principle of aquaculture and hydroponics providing optimal production conditions both for the fish and the plant units. By using the INAPRO technology resources are saved by 1) dual usage of water, energy and nutrients and 2) reducing sewage and the amount of fertiliser for the plants.
The INAPRO innovation concept for professional aquaponics was developed for scalable greenhouses of different sizes, from large scale agricultural facilities to small urban farming sites that are adaptable to different geographical and climatic conditions.
Four rural INAPRO aquaponic systems were installed in different parts of Europe and Asia (Spain, Germany, Belgium and China) to demonstrate their potential of water reuse with significant reductions of water consumption combined with recovery of raw material and nutrients, thus enhancing the natural water quality by reducing the environmental impact of effluents.
Ecological and economical evaluations such as a life-cycle assessment (LCA) and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) were done to proof and verify the viability as well as to determine the environmental impact of the systems and deliver arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages.
The significantly improved performance regarding the impact of aquaponic systems on the environment in terms of significantly reduced water pollution and eutrophication by nutrient leaching, compared to the conventional agriculture production would mean a great benefit for the wider society and worldwide environments. INAPRO produces healthy food free of contaminants as it uses only a minimal amount of fertiliser and no antibiotics at all.
By addressing the field of a water and energy saving sustainable food production, the INAPRO project has successfully disseminated the project´s outcomes to a large number of stakeholders in the agricultural and aquacultural field, as well as in the scientific and industrial community, in terms of technical development and business opportunities. An important step in this respect was accomplished by implementing urban INAPRO demonstration systems, involving them intensively in the projects dissemination activities at various places and opportunities.
The INAPRO partners organised seminars directed to end users to inform and obtain feedbacks from a wide range of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants.
Within the development of a management execution system (MES) for facility control the special needs of potential end users were particularly and extensively considered. Particular emphasis was given to the development of reporting tools to fit the user’s requirements. Thus especially the start-up of small and medium scaled newcomer companies in the field of aquaponics can be assisted and promoted by this software solution.
The widespread dissemination activities of all partners were essential for further exploitation of the results and achievements of the project. INAPRO aquaponics will enable a local and sustainable production, opening new market opportunities while reducing the imports of food and resulting in a reduction of CO2-emmissions. Consequently, this would definitely create an advantage for Europe´s wider society and could generate new jobs within the agricultural sector in general, but also high-skilled jobs for citizens.
To enlarge the outreach of the project special attention has been given to the complementarities with further EU funding mechanisms and related INAPRO to other parallel funded EU projects. Thereby the project established long lasting cooperation with new scientific, commercial, and public partners. INAPRO has acted as a seed project initialising follow up activities and several projects starting in 2018.
Thus the ambitions and outcomes of INAPRO met perfectly well with the recent EU strategies under the Horizon 2020 framework to face the challenges of the dramatic development of the water resource situation in Europe and worldwide.
Project Context and Objectives:
The growing world population and therefore the rising demand for food increases the pressure on water resources, land use, and ecosystems. For the necessary future extension of agricultural production the development and construction of sustainable, resource-friendly production systems including proper water, energy nutrients management based on the principles of re-use and recirculation is the only possible option.
INAPRO consequently addressed these challenges by implementing new technical and technological approaches into an innovative aquaponic system which allows a water and energy-saving, nearly emission free, sustainable production of fish and vegetables to contribute markedly to food security for the 21st century. Aquaponics is a green technology that couples aquaculture (production of fish) and hydroponic (production of vegetables) in one system. Wastewater from the aquaculture unit is used for the nutrition of the plants in the hydroponic unit and in parallel reducing the sewage of the fish production part, too.
The project reached an important step for these systems on the way towards a commercial breakthrough. This has been achieved by a model based optimisation of the aquaponic concept in respect to water consumption, environmental impact, waste avoidance, CO2 release and nutrients recycling, energy efficiency, management efforts, and production costs as well as by the integration of new technologies. Water management in aquaponic systems was the main topic of the INAPRO project and thus the emphasis of the concept laid on water usage and circulation.
The INAPRO aquaponic system concept utilises the basic idea to enhance conventional aquaponic systems which uses one single aquaponic recirculation system by a new coupling principle of the fish and the plant production parts (Fig. 2) which is described by Kloas et al. in “A new concept for aquaponic systems to improve sustainability, increase productivity, and reduce environmental impacts” (doi: 10.33547aei 00146) (Fig. 3).
The major advantage of this double recirculation system is the fact that optimum production conditions can be provided independently for both parts to increase productivity and to prevent any adverse interactions between plant and fish units. Furthermore, the process water reuse is improved and can optionally be enhanced by regaining the plant evapotranspirated water via cooling traps. By effective coupling of both parts of the system the water consumption has been reduced down to 3% of the RAS system volume per day.
That way the INAPRO project has been setting a new standard in professional and sustainable food production. INAPRO provides a system adaptable to various local conditions and to a wide range of solutions, from rural large-scale agricultural facilities to small urban farming kits, for a food production without using any pesticides. The INAPRO project covered the whole value chain from research to market orientated applications of this new aquaponic approach; therefore the main focus has been on innovations leading to demonstration objects within the duration of the project. One crucial point of the concept-based demonstration objects was to prove the viability of the resource-effective water, energy and nutrient management technologies of INAPRO in various regions. The INAPRO system offers an economic feasible solution while simultaneously reducing the water and carbon footprint. The INAPRO project has been mainly determined by the requirements and demands of industrial SMEs and end users. The manufacturing SMEs involved in this project were driving forces in research, development and demonstration, scientific partners are mainly responsible for experimental development, testing, monitoring and documentation. The far-reaching goal of the project was to mobilise industry, member states and stakeholders to promote the new and innovative INAPRO technology. The various dissemination activities (to policy, public and end users) often directly connected with the operating demonstration facilities have opened new market opportunities, awareness and acceptance and improved the market access inside and outside Europe for producers and technology suppliers.
All corresponding figures referred to in this document can be found in the annex.
Project Results:
=== SYSTEM MODEL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ===
The sustainable INAPRO aquaponic system united state of the art scientific knowledge and experiences in the fields of water, energy and nutrient management. Thereby INAPRO aquaponics features a new technological principle the water-saving combination principle of aquaculture and hydroponics to provide optimal production conditions both for the fish and the plant units.
Modelling approaches were used for optimizing the INAPRO technology and resulted in a deeper understanding of the different aspects of the system such as dynamic behaviour, design and construction of components, control and management, and the diagnosis of the measured environmental variables (Fig. 4, Fig. 5). Dynamic models of the INAPRO system were developed and implemented to support the design and construction process (Fig. 6, Fig. 7, Fig. 8). Possible technologies and configurations were weighed in order to maximise the production outcome while minimising the resources water, energy and nutrients and considering economic aspects. Based on these findings, the INAPRO project partners developed modular configured solutions, scalable and adaptable to local requirements (Fig. 14).
=== INAPRO DEMONSTRATION OBJECTS - DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION ===
The INAPRO systems proved the ability to perform successfully under different local, climatic and economic conditions. Manufacturers and farmers can use the opportunities of the system concept to consider the existing particularities and adapt the technical and technological details in system construction and operation.
During the second project period the demonstration facilities were constructed and operation started in Spain (Murcia), Germany (Waren), Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) and China (Shouguang) to prove their feasibility on a larger scale and under different geographical and climate conditions (Fig. 11).
Different climatic conditions at all four demonstrations sites have been evaluated and the results have been considered in the facility design. Generally the regional climatic conditions for the demonstration facilities were described and evaluated in deliverable D3.3. In all demonstration facilities the climate data in the aquaponics facility were monitored in the RAS and GH units.
In Murcia, Waren and Shouguang three completely new rural demonstration objects were built. In Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) one existing aquaculture facility was combined with an existing greenhouse to an aquaponic system (Fig. 18). Coupling of one or two already existing fish and/or plant systems provides a huge potential for aquaponics which is not covered by the construction of new facilities. Adaptations to the system infrastructure in Rumbeke-Beitem as result of evaluating the climate were already done before the INAPRO project has started.
Water and energy optimised system solutions including supporting technologies (sensor-techniques and automation, ICT, production management etc.) were integrated into the demonstration systems (Fig. 16).
In Abtshagen (DE) an additional small scale aquaponic system for research and development was installed to test different combinations of fish and plants and to evaluate new filter systems (Fig. 9, Fig. 10). Experiences and results gained from this test & research facility which was already fully operational and impeccable producing fish and tomatoes during the first project period were used for equipping and setting up the larger scaled rural demonstration objects.
In the process of design and building of the different aquaponic objects special challenges and local conditions had to be considered and special solutions to be found:
--- For an economic viable production in Waren (DE) a high fish output was necessary because of the high operation costs especially for labour, feed and energy. This could be solved by choosing the African catfish as a species which is suitable for high stocking densities and well marketable in Germany.
--- In Murcia (ES) tilapia were chosen for comparison with a further, more sensible species and especially the high summer temperatures had to be considered, requiring greenhouse cooling capacity. Hence an additional gas generator power supply to cope with the limited grid capacity had to be installed.
--- In Rumbeke-Beitem (BE) the connection of an already existing RAS and an existing greenhouse was the special task, needing a 100 m connecting pipe and coming with certain limitation concerning the fish and plant species and communication challenges in the day-to-day management.
--- Shouguang (CN) had substantial additional financial support from local authorities (including from SMEs) enabling a large facility and integrating mushroom production.
In terms of comparability, special care was taken to ensure that the system configuration and the coupling principle between the aquaculture and the hydroponic part were the same in the 3 systems in Spain, Germany and China.
As from the beginning of the INAPRO project and verified by modelling and research results within several WPs it was evident that a larger farm would easier achieve economic profitability than smaller facilities (cf. deliverable D4.3 and INAPRO Third Periodic Report). The available financial, planning and building capacities of the INAPRO project did not suffice to plan especially larger greenhouse capacities for the demonstration farms in Germany and Spain to at least doubled, better tripled size.
The advantages of the facility built in China were:
• A larger system is more economically viable
• The strong participation of experts from external manufacturer and end-user SMEs was facilitated to support the dissemination and exploitation activities of INAPRO in China.
In general the assumption that a larger system is more economically viable was confirmed by the INAPRO cost-benefit- analysis (cf. deliverable D4.3 and INAPRO Third Periodic Report).
The construction of the INAPRO demonstration systems has been finished in 2016.
=== OPERATION, LONG-TERM DATA ACQUISITION, AND TEST PERIOD RESULTS ===
The full functionality of all elements and modules has been tested and real time validated over a long term operation at end user sites during the second and third project period (Fig. 17 - Fig. 20). The feasibility of water reuse and closed water cycles, the significant reduction of water consumption compared with single production systems and the improved waste water treatment with recovery of raw material and nutrients facilitating an enhancement of water quality are demonstrated there and have been evaluated over two production cycles.
The testing procedures were carried out according to the developed test specification (cf. D4.2) for the INAPRO demo systems running in Spain (Murcia), Germany (Waren), Belgium (Rumbeke-Beitem) and China (Shouguang).
___ FISH PRODUCTION ___
Waren specialised its production to African catfish, produced at high stocking densities and with good feed conversion rates (FCR) of 1.1. This species is well marketable in Germany and green labelled by the WWF. The average production reached 12 t/a; but having a potential capacity of 15 t/a.
The project consortium including the partner and operator in Murcia decided to use Nile tilapia as target fish species, well known and marketable in Spain where freshwater fish has to compete against high quality seafood. Tilapia from aquaponics is also green-labelled by WWF. The species is more sensitive concerning water quality conditions. It could be raised up to final stocking densities of 100 kg/m³ with an FCR of 1.3.
In Rumbeke-Beitem an already existing RAS was connected with an already existing greenhouse, so the fish species used was already determined to be pikeperch, a well-known and excellent marketable high-prized freshwater fish in Europe. A FCR of 1.2 was reached, 1.0 would be possible, the raising conditions are more difficult to maintain and stocking densities of max. 50 kg/m³ are recommendable.
China was able to build larger facilities because of substantial financial and building support from local supporters, so they achieved to establish a RAS of 180 m³ holding capacity. The filter technologies used were similar to those of the other facilities but intensive liquid oxygen aeration was used to maintain the water quality conditions. The produced fish species reported was Murray Cod a high valued fish in Asia which has normally to be imported from Australia. The facility reached 80 kg/m³ with a FCR of 1.3 (potential of 100 kg/m³).
The systems reached a fish production capacity of: Waren - 12 t; Murcia - 3.5 t; Rumbeke-Beitem - 1.5 t; and Shouguang - 30 t.
A first prototype of a new filter device was implemented into the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) of the INAPRO aquaponic test & research facility in Abtshagen. It was tested within the INAPRO project in terms of nitrogen loss and showed a high potential to enhance the nutrient management and the sustainability of the INAPRO aquaponic system. The use of the new filter system was accompanied by a relative stable nutrient concentration in the fish water (Third Periodic Report at page 82).
The nitrogen loss was significantly reduced by that system modification (≈43%) and thus resulted in a quite large reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to the reduced need for manufacturing of nitrogen fertiliser. It was proved that the waste water of African catfish can thus deliver nearly 100% of the nitrogen required by tomatoes, the modified system configuration can minimise the impact to global warming enormously alone by reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the manufacturing of nitrogen fertiliser that would be needed to grow tomatoes in separated hydroponic systems (cf. Third Periodic Report).
The development of the patented device (PAL KLAR; Patent number DE 102014004767A1) has been done by the project partner PAL Anlagenbau GmbH in cooperation with the University of Rostock and was not part of the INAPRO project.
___ PLANT PRODUCTION ___
Three of the four INAPRO demonstration systems are located at sites with different climates, which affected the plant production more than the fish production. Concerning the production per net-acreage area for hydroponic plant production, generalised statements are difficult, since the specific area strongly depends on the production methods and the plant species produced. For example the vertical production of tomatoes in NFT or substrate requires extensive space to establish optimal light conditions for each plant and additionally for harvesting purposes. Here 2-3 plants per square meter are generally seen as optimal. Horizontal, hydroponic lettuce or basil production enables a much higher plant density per square meter since only the width of the plant determines the maximum amount of plants per area. Thus a comparison of different crops needs to be conducted in a careful way and additional factors like water consumption, nutrient requirement and uptake, and net productivity have to be considered.
It could be demonstrated that in the INAPRO system comparable tomato yields were produced as obtained for conventional hydroponics. In the INAPRO test & research facility a total yield of 29.4 kg/m2 was gained using optimised fish waste water and resulted in similar yields as the control of conventional hydroponics with 31.6 kg/m²; being not statistically different. Significantly higher yields under aquaponic conditions were found in the INAPRO system of Rumbeke-Beitem in 2017 with harvests of 52.2 kg/m² in aquaponics and 50.9 kg/m² in conventional production. In addition, the rate of marketable fruits was increased in aquaponics when compared with hydroponics due to the fact that in hydroponics significant lower fruits were affected by blossom-end rot (BER) which is a physiological disorder of the plants.
Fruit parameters were compared in both systems; the very important health-promoting compounds lycopene and ß-carotene did not differ significantly between aquaponics and conventional hydroponics. The content of soluble solids (SSC) was in the same range in aquaponics and single hydroponics. It could be shown in flavour tests that the sensory properties of tomatoes from aquaponics were not negatively affected. No significant differences in sensory properties between tomatoes from single hydroponic and aquaponics (where tomatoes are irrigated with fish water) were found (Fig. 54).
The usefulness of two different irrigation technologies for aquaponics has been evaluated: a) growing on rock wool with a drip irrigation system b) applying cross flow NFT technology. The results proved that a very efficient removal of organic solids from RAS water have to be ensured if drip irrigation is planned, otherwise NFT should be preferred for aquaponic applications (Fig. 47 and Fig. 48).
The plant monitoring system growWatch was used in the hydroponic part for continuous monitoring of greenhouse and crop conditions (Fig. 49). The resulting weekly/daily reports and advises were sent to the operators of the demo systems and used to optimise the tomato production. The advantage of using a growWatch system compared to a regular climate computer is that the climate data are actually measured between the plants instead of a fixed location in the greenhouse. Furthermore it is able to directly measure plant activities such as photosynthesis activity. Also climate and plant related parameters can be calculated by using data from multiple sensors (Fig. 50).
The INAPRO demonstration systems reached a plant production capacity of: Waren - 4.5 t; Murcia - 6.8 t; Rumbeke-Beitem - 4.7 t; and Shouguang - 15 t tomato, 22 t herbs, 28.4 t celery, and 3 t pepper.
___ WATER CONSUMPTION ___
One main reason to apply recirculation systems and moreover aquaponic systems is saving the limited environmental resource water and avoiding its pollution with nutrients and contaminants. Therefore the water consumption of the implemented INAPRO demonstration systems was of foremost importance in evaluation and judgement of the applied technology.
The water consumption rates per unit fish produced, per unit food produced, and in relation to the fish/plant (tomato) ratio (FP ratio) were evaluated during the systems operation. The water amounts required for fish production were differing largely between Waren and Murcia corresponding to the fish species chosen with different water quality demands and possible different stocking densities. Furthermore a technical accident with the gas generator occurred in Murcia leading to fish losses and impaired growth and so artificially enhanced the water consumption related to the fish harvest. Therefore Murcia could not reach the planned low water consumption in 2017, whereas Waren could raise the fish with 146 l/kg. The latter value has to be seen as very realistic for high-tech recirculation systems and is comparable with professional commercial RAS. The water consumption of plant production was also within the limits of intensive greenhouse tomato producing facilities with 61 l/kg in Waren and slightly higher in Murcia with 74 l/kg caused by the warmer climatic conditions.
The amount of fish water double used for the greenhouse plants production is the transfer water. The different greenhouse and production conditions lead to a different rate of transfer water/ total water consumption. For 2017 the water re-usage by the hydroponic system was for Murcia 32% and Waren 16%.
Realistic scenario calculations based on all results and experiences from the aquaponic demonstration farms in appropriately dimensioned RAS-GH systems with fish : tomato (FT) harvest rates of 1:3 and a possible water re-usage of around ca. 100% transfer water, resulting in a water consumption of 38 50 l/kg food (fish and tomatoes) (Fig. 56).
___ ENERGY CONSUMPTION / PRODUCTION ___
Different energy supply solutions were tested in the INAPRO demonstration objects considering the local conditions and available resources and opportunities (Fig. 21).
In Waren (DE) powerful electric grid and gas connections were available but heating was calculated to be necessary during longer times. So a heating demand controlled combined heat and power unit (CHP) was installed as main supply supported by photovoltaics and grid usage during no-heating/ no-sunshine times. The surplus electrical energy was sold to the close by fish processing facility.
The Murcia (ES) demo facility is located in a rural landscape with weak electric power grid, solar energy is available but local usage is limited to 10 kW according to Spanish legislations. The solution was electric grid supported by a respective photovoltaic solution and a liquid gas electricity-generator for peak demands and necessary cooling.
The object in Rumbeke-Beitem (BE) is situated at the area of a large agricultural research and education facility with the opportunity to use biogas from an existing unit. A powerful electric grid connection was also able to be used.
The system in Shouguang is part of a larger agricultural vegetable producing company where multiple energy sources were available from the whole facility: electric grid as well as solar power, biogas, wind energy and biofuel from own production. Because of the alternating demand of heating and cooling power even the installation of a heat pump system (GSHP) was decided.
A special case in energy consumption was the cooling of the greenhouse compartments necessary during hot summer days in Spain, Germany and China. At the recent state of technology this could only be realised by vapour-compression chillers, they are expensive and energy consuming. Cooling needed 35-50% of the total energy consumption of the system related to the climatic conditions. During cooling times the technology can additionally regain evapotranspirated water from the greenhouse for re-using in the RAS. Possible improvements in energy management solutions for aquaponic facilities are described in the section Ecological and Economical Performance.
___ MONITORING AND CONTROL ___
The management and control of the INAPRO aquaponic systems is based on a management execution system (MES) that was applied to monitor and adjust the production conditions for the fish and plant units (Fig. 34). The MES is a sophisticated automated management and control system for water quality, intelligent feeding/nutrient supply decisions, fish/plant disease control, monitoring of food security conditions, remote control, and diagnosis concerning O2, pH, LC values and nutrient composition etc. It integrates signalling and online early warning in case of emergency or technical malfunctions. Thus it is a necessary and especially useful tool for aquaponics end users. The actions of the MES are based on data delivered by the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) subsystem (Fig. 33) which reads data from different sensors installed in the facility (e.g. Fig. 16).
The test specification for systems operation was set out in the INAPRO deliverable “D 4.2 Test specification for demonstration” and defined a target sensor list. On this basis a “data point list” was elaborated containing an overview of the implemented sensors, its characteristics, and the respective measuring points (Fig. 35). According to this “data point list” the measurements/ parameters/ occurrences were documented in an INAPRO MS-SQL Server database for interpretations and conclusions (Fig. 30).
Data on or around the crop are obtained by the new developed growWatch plant monitoring system. The resulting weekly/ daily reports and advises were used to optimise the tomato production (Fig. 49, Fig. 50).
For the Chinese demonstration system in Shouguang a special MES user interface was developed to support Chinese characters and language (Fig. 43 and Fig. 44).
=== URBAN SYSTEMS ===
One aim of INAPRO was the development and presentation of innovative and sustainable aquaponic solutions and their implementation in demonstration systems to convince various stakeholders of the advantages and practicability of this technology. An important step in this respect was accomplished by implementing and operating the urban INAPRO demonstration systems, involving them intensely in the projects dissemination activities at various places and opportunities towards interested partners and different stakeholders.
Four urban INAPRO demo systems were designed and constructed and deployed: version 1 & 2 of the mobile INAPRO-tower systems, a floating aquaponic system and a permanent version at the FEZ Berlin. Furthermore two table models were built and made available for exposition locations where space or weight limits did not allow one of the bigger urban systems.
All of these attracted a lot of interested people and organisations and the IGB is still getting requests to show them and present the INAPRO results and experiences. So these systems contributed essentially to the success of the projects dissemination and exploitation activities and the observable progress of aquaponics within the last few years (cf. D4.5).
An attractive and aesthetical object design and an easy management were important features of the urban system. The final art design of the urban demonstration systems was created by Ms Wenke Förster supervised by Prof J. Vietze from the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (University of Applied Sciences), Department Design and Culture (Fig. 22). The SME partners in the consortium were strongly involved into planning and constructing the urban systems.
The 1st compact model was most often used due to the practicable size and relatively low height and floor loading (tons per square meter when it is filled with water). The model of the system was presented e.g. at the exhibition “WEtransFORM” (Fig. 23), during the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften – The Long Night of Science” on 11th June 2016 (Fig. 86). At the 26th „MeLa“, trade exhibition for agriculture and nutrition, 2016 in Mühlen-Geez this model was presented to delegates and experts from policy and administration and general public from Germany and neighbouring European countries. The latest location is the still running exhibition “Food Revolution 5.0 - Design for Tomorrow’s Society” in Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin from 18th May to 30th September 2018 (Fig. 85).
The extended version is a further development of the compact version which was again mainly realised by project partner PAL on the basis of the drafts of Wenke Förster. The idea of the system design bases on the five-piece fruit chamber system of tomatoes. Inspired by the specific cross section the urban system offers a circular structure with a spherical shell. This version of the urban aquaponic system was e.g. displayed at the exhibition “Hortivation” (sister exhibition of the world's leading trade fair IPM ESSEN) in Kalkar in June 2016. During the Annual international EuroTier” in Hannover from 15th to 18th November 2016 the system was also displayed. EuroTier is one world leading trade fair for animal production, and attracts thousands of visitors interested in information on various products, systems, innovations and trends (Fig. 25). Furthermore, the system was presented during the “HUMAN FACTOR – Endless Prototyping” exhibition organised by Ars electronica in the premises of DRIVE. Volkswagen Group Forum in Berlin (Fig. 24).
Two more production oriented urban models were the version 3 of the urban aquaponic systems, designed as small scale floating aquaponic greenhouse for the use in calm water bodies (Fig. 26, Fig. 27, Fig. 28) and the container sized aquaculture RAS-solution attachable to existing greenhouses or even seasonally to open agricultural spaces (Fig. 29). The floating urban demonstration object was presented to various visitors of IGB, involved in presentations at end user seminars, the aquaponics IGB academy event and the IGB/HUB student education.
The urban systems and their utilisation were closely linked to the dissemination activities of INAPRO. As a straight response to these activities the consortium received many requests from interested parties reaching beyond the project time and it is planned to use and show the urban systems also in future events, e.g. it is planned to demonstrate the urban systems at the EXPO 2019 in Beijing.
The application of aquaponics in urban areas aroused great international interest and led to the formation of a new project team which successfully applied for the project CITYFOOD “Smart integrated multitrophic city food production systems – a water and energy saving approach for global urbanisation” funded within the Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative by the Belmont Forum and the JPI Urban Europe in Horizon 2020 (cf. D4.5 Fig. 94). All versions of the urban systems will further be used within follow-up projects as CITYFOOD and for continuing cooperation with end users and manufacturers.
=== INNOVATION CONCEPT AND STANDARDISATION ===
Based on the results from modelling and from the practical operation of the demonstration systems the innovation concept for water, energy and nutrients management in a sustainable and economic viable INAPRO system was developed focussing on standardised high technology production to be competitive with conventional single aquacultures (RAS) and single hydroponic systems.
The determination of standards was a crucial task following the analysis and evaluation of project results and went hand in hand with the refinements of the innovation concept. The standardised solutions developed by the project and those concerning future innovative aquaponic production systems are described in the following sections.
___ PROCESS STANDARDS ___
Process standards are referring to the water, nutrient use and energy technologies of INAPRO with defined technological parameters.
--- Coupling principle for aquaponics
The main principle of this concept is that the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) and the hydroponic system (HS) were coupled unidirectional by a one-way-valve or a similar operating solution but operated in separate water cycles. This double recirculation aquaponic system (DRAPS) allows regulating RAS and HS independently thus providing optimum conditions for both production units (Fig. 3).
--- Production control
The complex INAPRO sensor system includes effective information monitoring techniques and high level of online water quality and greenhouse environment monitoring and control. This system has to be applied to monitor the variance of dissolved oxygen, pH, water temperature, water level, soil moisture, air moisture and temperature, solar radiation and different other environmental, technical and technological parameters online.
___ PRODUCTION STANDARDS ___
The production standards are related to the technical construction and design of the INAPRO systems.
--- Aquaponic system configuration (Fig. 13)
Water effluent from the fish tanks (FT) is directed to a mechanical filter (MF) to hold back the solids. Settled sludge from the MF is directed to a post-purge unit (PP) for secondary removal of solids. The water from the MF flows to the pump sump (PS) where it is warmed to the set temperature. A biofilter (BF) for nitrification, O2 enrichment, and CO2 degassing takes water from the pump sump and passes it back, where the water is also disinfected by UV light. Finally, the process water is circulated from the PS back to the FTs. The RAS water recirculation rate should be at least one to three times per hour to ensure an optimal oxygen content of 60-80% saturation in the FTs. Concurrently CO2 and NH4 are removed from the fish tanks.
The plant unit receives water with dissolved nutrients from the RAS. This water is stored in a mixing tank (MT), the pH is adjusted, and missing nutrients are supplemented as fertiliser components in order to create optimal conditions for the plant species chosen to be produced. The adjusted nutrient solution from the MT is recirculated in collection tanks that feed either NFT or substrate trenches. The water which the plants transpire and evaporate is replaced by adding solution from the MT.
--- Component configuration
The components recommended for the use in aquaponic systems are compiled in D4.3 (Fig. 45).
--- Nitrogen dynamics
The predominant macronutrient recycled from the fish unit in aquaponics is nitrogen, mainly in the form of nitrate. For the N dynamics in aquaponics a mass-flow related model was developed. This model calculates how much nitrate is produced from 1 kg food and how many tomatoes can be fertilised with it (Fig. 46). The model can assist practitioners in optimising their facility. The addition of biopromoters during the first weeks of operation can improve the development of nitrification bacteria and accelerate the starting phase of aquaponics (Fig. 51).
--- Recommended ratio between fish and tomatoes
Only at a minimum mass ratio of 1:3 fish to tomatoes (kg fish: kg tomato) a total exploitation of fish water by the plants can be achieved. Further results from modelling and the experimental evaluation of the INAPRO demo systems lead to a recommended ratio between the production of fish and plants which is in the range of 1:3 to 1:5; but the fish species, the species dependent water demand by the plants, and the irrigation technology has to be taken into account
--- Water consumption
Within INAPRO an important aspect of the coupling of the RAS with the greenhouse is the dual usage of water. To maximise this effect the aim is to transfer preferably the whole quantity of RAS exchange water as fish waste water to the greenhouse for plant irrigation. Thus the sewage water is reduced dramatically. RAS water consumption per unit marketable fish produced has to be estimated at least with 150 l/kg, a value comparable to other high-tech recirculation aquacultures. The plants water consumption in an INAPRO system can be kept comparable to conventional greenhouse tomato producing facilities.
___ MANAGEMENT SYSTEM STANDARDS ___
The INAPRO management system standards have been refined throughout the whole project time (Fig. 36 - Fig. 44).
--- Management execution system (MES)
The INAPRO management system standards cover all aspects of the INAPRO system by integration of technological, organisational, financial, ICT and management approaches including a hardware / software platform and standards for automatic local and remote control of the system. Test parameters comprise different measurements like technical, technological, biological, chemical and productivity measures as described in the test specification (Fig. 35).To deal with the high complexity of professional aquaponics a continuous monitoring and evaluation of the entire production cycle by an integrated MES is strongly recommended (Fig. 34). Within the development of the management execution system (MES) the special needs of the potential end users were particularly and extensively considered. Thus the start-up of newcomers in the field of aquaponics can be assisted and promoted.
--- Production cyclogram
Production cyclograms for tilapia and catfish were developed to plan and manage the growth and harvest cycles of fish in the RAS. An additional production cyclogram for tomato production was elaborated and is available since 2017. The cyclograms fit the needs of end users and are necessary for the planning and realisation of a nutrient-balanced nearly continuous fish and plant production.
--- Energy management
For the development of an optimal energy management concept in a sustainable and economic viable INAPRO aquaponic system, a hybrid energy solution using locally available sources is recommended. The usable components are: PV, CHP, biogas, waste, heat sources, gas/fuel generators, gas/fuel boiler. The following parameters have been identified to be necessary to evaluate the energy management of aquaponic systems: energy demand for fish production, energy demand for greenhouse production system, energy demand for cooling, production CHP, production PV, power input from the grid, power sent to the grid, energy sent to the manufacturing and processing, boiler gas demand, heat demand, and CHP gas demand. Based on these data the developed models for efficient use of renewable energy can be calculated for different aquaponic systems.
By continuously integrating data loop-backs from the WPs 2, 3 and 4 the modelling approaches as well as the innovation concept has been further developed throughout the second and third project period. The innovation concept considers recent conditions and offers tools to calculate and propose optimised solutions not only for the running demonstration cases but even for potential end users (Fig. 33, Fig. 34).
___ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SYSTEM OPERATION ___
The INAPRO partners organised several seminars and excursions directed to end users, manufacturers and to educational institutions to inform about the INAPRO aquaponic system and obtained various feedbacks from a large spectrum of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants while discussing benefits, opportunities, risks and bottlenecks of aquaponics (Fig. 90), technicalities linked to the construction of aquaponic farms, marketing and distribution of aquaponic products. Based on the experiences and the test results of the running INAPRO demonstration systems it was possible to summarise the key issues necessary to successfully run a system and offer approaches for interested, but only partially experienced end users, to demonstrate in how far the system can be individually adapted and give advice to take care of possible risks.
=== ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMICAL PERFORMANCE ===
___ LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS ___
A thorough life-cycle analysis (LCA) was made and verified the viability and determined the ecologic and economic boundary conditions of the system thereby delivering arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages (Fig. 55).
The life-cycle analysis data are modelled within the categories of potential impact:
- Global Warming Potential (GWP),
- Water Depletion Potential (WDP),
- Freshwater Eutrophication Potential (FEP),
- Terrestrial Acidification Potential (TAP),
- Cumulative Energy Demand (CED).
The two process chains ‘feed production’ and ‘electricity production’ have the first or second rank in almost all impact categories and are the main contributors to the environmental burdens of the INAPRO system. The water related process chain 'freshwater' has a contribution of more than 50% to the Water Depletion potential (cf. D4.3).
___ COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS ___
The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as the systematic process for calculating and comparing benefits and costs of a project was performed with the data from the Waren (DE) demonstration facility as example (cf. D4.3). A finally recommendable solution for the locations Waren and Murcia would be a fish production of 15 t/a and a triple sized greenhouse area with verified tomato harvests of 40 kg/m² which could gain 45 t/a tomatoes, achieving the ratio of 1:3 for fish/tomato and re-using the full amount of RAS transfer-water available from fish for the greenhouse production. Such a system could earn a yearly profit of ca. 100 T€ and achieve return of investment times between 8 and 10 years. The economic performance will however be quite sensitive to changes in the purchase price at which the produced goods are sold.
Reaching and convincing potential end users and ensuring the market uptake of the INAPRO system was one of the main goals of the project. The gained relevant information for potential end users of the INAPRO system includes experiences and conclusions about the functionality as well as economic data of the INPRO system gained from recorded data of the demo farms and extended by scenario analyses (Fig. 56, Fig. 57). Intensive contacts with possible end users, business stakeholders, entrepreneurs, growers and apprentices, the project partners have been established by the extensive dissemination activities (see next chapter).
___ FISH FEEDING STRATEGY ___
For the European and worldwide agriculture sector increasing its sustainability is an important task to mitigate the consequences of climate change and to prevent the depletion of valuable resources. Therefore, when designing or improving sustainable agricultural concepts, a holistic approach should be the final aim. In terms of aquaponic systems it is important to address not only the increase in system efficiency but also its input with feed being an important one.
The production of fish in aquaculture, including aquaponic systems, strongly depends on fish meal and fish oil, mainly derived from capture fisheries for the production of feed. Since the aquaculture sector is the fastest growing sector in animal food production, the pressure on fish stocks generally exploited for the production of fish meal and fish oil is increasing and sustainable alternatives to substitute these essential ingredients are necessary. Thus, a sustainable feed for aquaponic production is important to increase the overall sustainability of these systems and to reduce the pressure on global fish stocks.
Within the ASTAF-PRO project, this topic was experimentally addressed. Fish meal was partially or fully substituted e.g. with extracted pea protein and housefly maggot meal and the results were very promising. Nevertheless it is arguable that valuable space and resources are depleted to grow plants, that are often produced in intensive, non-sustainable monocultures, for the substitution of fish meal in the production of fish feed instead of for direct human consumption. Additionally, fish feed is often optimized for species-specific requirements to achieve optimal growth and the choice of fish that should be produced in aquaculture determines the feed. There is still some research necessary to determine the overall environmental sustainability (extended LCA) of different fish feed formulations, furthermore the recent legal regulations at the starting point of INAPRO did not allow for insects in farm animals feeding.
INAPRO focussed on the demonstration of aquaponics technology on a practical level, so it could not treat these basic research questions simultaneously. Conventional commercial feed containing fish meal and fish oil was used in all INAPRO facilities. To reduce the environmental impact of fish feed a production model of the fish cycle with optimised growth-related feeding regimes was elaborated (cf. deliverable D1.4 section 2.1.6).
The above mentioned Life Cycle Analyses (LCA) of the aquaponic INAPRO facility in Waren (Germany) revealed, that the fish meal used for fish feed production contributes to over 25% of the carbon foot print of the aquaponic facility. Reducing or replacing fish meal or fish oil in the feed will have a huge beneficial effect on the overall sustainability of future aquaponic systems, but only if the growth of the fish is not compromised and the substitute has a much lower carbon footprint compared to fish meal.
As a direct reaction to this outcome, the findings from the INAPRO project were integrated in a new project proposal for the project CUBES circle (cf. section Exploitation) where the INAPRO coordinator Prof. Kloas will be responsible for the FishCUBE sub-project. This project examines, next to other aquaponic relevant topics, the potential of insect larvae as a fish meal substitute to increase the sustainability of aquaponic production. The production of insects requires only minimal amounts of water and other resources and is one of the most promising candidates as substitute in commercial fish feed next to the use of by-products e.g. from the food industry, that are otherwise disposed. Besides, many other research groups worldwide are working on this topic and many successful examples in the scientific literature are present, even though not commercially available yet.
___ ENERGY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ___
Energy consumption is beside salaries and fish feed one of the main cost items and environmental load factors (cf. section Operation, long–term data acquisition, and test period results). Information about energy solutions modelled and tested is published in the deliverables D1.4 and D2.3 of the INAPRO project, finally applied solutions were summarised in the Third Periodic Report section 4.1.4.4. Results of demonstration objects operation and final evaluations additionally lead to concluding considerations in respect to future aquaponic facilities:
From an ecological perspective based on the assessment of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) the production of electrical energy necessary for the aquaponic facility is the main factor. Heating and cooling are thereby the most energy intensive processes in the facilities operation. Cooling alone needed 35 50% of the total energy consumption of the system related to the climatic conditions and season. Heating made up for another 25-40% estimated by subtracting cooling plus pump and illumination power values from total energy consumed.
For the implementation of a sustainable production in addition to the ecological perspective the investment and running production costs are utmost important to achieve a cost effective production and viable system.
Especially cooling and air conditioning of the greenhouse during summer periods consumes a lot of electricity and even comes with high investment costs when using the current vapour-compression chillers technology. New technologies like waste heat or solar-driven ad- or absorption chiller machines open up possibilities for reducing the running costs drastically but are at the moment still too expensive and not yet easily implementable. Another perspective would arise from combined desalination-cooling applications which are still under scientific development and were planned to be explored within a follow-up PRIMA-call project in cooperation between IGB, Tilamur, autosoft and the TU-Berlin which did not yet pass the 2018th proposal evaluation but was encouraged to be submitted again. Anyway, this approach is planned to be continued in further research.
From an ecological perspective the use of alternative energy sources in aquaculture for closed recirculating systems and for air conditioning of greenhouses are always worthwhile.
Decisions on the use of small wind turbines, photovoltaic and solar thermal systems can only be taken individually on the basis of comprehensive analysis of the site-specific conditions regarding the suitability and profound planning as well as cost-benefit analyses as mentioned in the Third Periodic Report section 4.1.4.4. An example for this is the solar power utilisation in Spain where the demo facility is located in a rural landscape with weak electric power grid, solar energy is available but local usage is limited to 10 kW according to Spanish legislations.
An energy effective operation was furthermore ensured by the developed management execution system (MES) including a SCADA control system architecture and integrating a greenhouse control system. The MES regulated heating, cooling, aeration and pumping in the fish system, feeding of fish as well as ventilation, water and nutrients dosage in the greenhouse respective to system demands and corresponding to the production cyclogram planning.
Potential Impact:
=== IMPACT ===
INAPRO followed the goal to facilitate, support and speed up the development and deployment of innovative solutions to water management and food production challenges and create market opportunities for these innovations inside and outside of Europe. The project succeeded therein by mobilising main players from industry, manufacturers and end user SMEs and several related stakeholders to promote and propagate the innovative technological applications of INAPRO in the branches of water management and food production.
Within the project four demonstration farms with a long-term stable operation, a marketable output and a broad dissemination outreach were established in Germany, Belgium, Spain and China. These objects were successfully tested, analysed and evaluated. The obtained data and results served as basis to elaborate an innovation concept for future professional commercial aquaponic farms.
The ecological and economical evaluation of the operating aquaponic demonstration farms could proof and verify the viability and confirmed a lowered environmental impact of these systems thereby delivering arguments for a successful dissemination, exploitation and marketing of the INAPRO system advantages. Being healthy and environmentally friendly, INAPRO products enjoy a decisive market advantage. The development of rural and urban aquaponic farms in Europe based on the INAPRO solutions will foster green growth and will create new jobs in the highly competitive food production branch. Thanks to a highly efficient reuse of water, the system requires a comparatively low fresh water input representing the perfect solution for rural areas suffering from water scarcity. Furthermore, INAPRO responds to the growing demand for seafood without increasing the pressure on global overexploited marine fish stocks.
The INAPRO project was well recognised and spotlighted by the EC Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) https://cordis.europa.eu/search/result_en?q=inapro). Several contributions referred to the start, the achievements over the project time and the successful finalisation of INAPRO. This helped a lot in connecting to several EU and worldwide funded programmes and initiatives.
The project has particularly aimed at supporting the Innovation Union with the EIP on Water as one of its key initiatives and has consequently been linked to the EIP Water Action group WIRE “Water & Irrigated agriculture Resilient Europe” (cf. section exploitation).
=== DISSEMINATION ===
Dissemination has been an essential part of the INAPRPO project as it is generally accepted that S & T results need to be communicated to all relevant stakeholders to enable the project to leave a long-lasting impact. Hence an own work package (WP5) with 12 deliverables was assigned to dissemination activities within the project.
As a major focus of the project, the permanent exchange with policy and business stakeholders regarding new results and project outcomes was essential to promote the further development in the field of aquaponics. The INAPRO project has established extended cooperation to local authorities, politicians and companies. Moreover the project team has received regularly inquiries from potential investors who plan to set up aquaponic systems.
Because of the addressed field of water and energy saving sustainable and healthy food production, the INAPRO project build up interest of a growing number of stakeholders in the water sector and in the agricultural/ aquacultural field as well as in the scientific and industrial community, in terms of technical development and business opportunities.
All dissemination activities were connected within one work-package and based on a detailed dissemination plan which has been elaborated at the start of the project. The dissemination activities comprised: communication and cooperation with projects and initiatives; information and communication measures towards policy; scientific internal and external knowledge exchange, discussions and publications; seminars, visits and showcases, exhibitions, fairs and advertisements and publications for end users and manufacturers as well as various measures of all mentioned kinds for the general public.
The most important step towards commercialisation of the INAPRO aquaponic system was mainly accomplished by the demo objects demonstrating practical usability, sustainability and economic competitiveness. Especially the demonstration activities have been closely connected to the dissemination and exploitation activities The INAPRO aquaponic systems were used to demonstrate practical usability, environmental sustainability and economic competitiveness. To increase the awareness and appreciation for the need, potential and benefits of the INAPRO aquaponic system facts and records of the successful implementation and operation of the INAPRO systems were disseminated to policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders. The objective was to convince them of the great potential in water and carbon footprint reduction and thereby mobilise them to promote the innovative INAPRO system.
___ PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS ___
INAPRO was an innovation and demonstration project but even contained a considerable part of research and development and all those activities together led to a valuable output of scientific publications. In total there are recently 18 published and two submitted peer-reviewed scientific article and several more in preparation. Two public available PhD theses have been defended, one is still in progress. Furthermore one MSc and three BSc theses were elaborated within the project.
___ DISSEMINATION TO POLICY STAKEHOLDERS ___
An increasing number of visits have taken place at the INAPRO demonstration sites and in particular, the Waren site has been visited by a number of Members of the European Parliament on the 19th July 2017 (Fig. 78). The visit took place in the framework of a mission organised by the Committee of Fisheries to the county Mecklenburg - Western Pomerania in order to meet and exchange with several stakeholders from the region about fisheries and aquaculture related issues. This visit proved to be a great opportunity to present aquaponics and the INAPRO system to interested policy-makers. Other visits have been addressed specifically towards potential end users in order to show them how the INAPRO system works and save resources and to reply to their questions (Fig. 79, Fig. 87).
Several members of the European Parliament were met in order to strengthen the debates on sustainability, water scarcity and food security and to get those topics on the political agenda. A major role played the discussion on the sustainability and the possibilities for aquaponics to receive the eco-certification status. Some MEPs that were already informed about INAPRO contacted the project management in 2018 to harness the project ideas and outcome during the elaboration phase of a European Parliament INI report “Towards a sustainable and competitive European aquaculture sector: current status and future challenges”. This report, which was drafted by the Fisheries Committee, was adopted by the European Parliament in 2018 and, thanks to the support of many MEPs, contains positive articles acknowledging the important role that sustainable technologies including aquaponics could play for the improvement of food security and some calls on the Commission and the Member States to invest in research, studies and pilot projects for innovative, future-oriented, environmentally responsible practices such as aquaponics.
In January 2018, Prof. Kloas, INAPRO coordinator, moderated a panel discussion entitled “Can wastewater contribute to food security?" during the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture that took place in Berlin. The other speakers on the panel were Dr. Marlos de Souza (FAO), Dr. Sarantuyaa Zandaryaa (UNESCO ), Dr. Steven N. Schonberger (World Bank) and Dr. Sophie Boisson (WHO ) (Fig. 82) .
___ COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES ___
For the promotion of the INAPRO technology also the local authorities and businesses were sensitised, e.g. INAPRO participated at a networking meeting organised by the Landesfischereiverband Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Country Fisheries Association) to discuss about the possibilities of catfish farming and to spread the idea of producing them within aquaponics.
Mariano Vidal (Tilamur) presented the Murcia demonstration facility at the Spanish Day of Aquaculture in Madrid and explained goals and achievements of the INAPRO project for the broad audience (Fig. 80).
___ END USER WORKSHOPS AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES AT THE RURAL INAPRO SYSTEMS ___
The INAPRO partners organised seminars directed to end users to inform and obtain feedbacks from a wide range of actors such as fish farmers, horticulturists, producer associations, cooperatives and consultants (Fig. 75). The several competitive advantages in comparison to conventional systems were highlighted in the seminars: System manufacturers and facility operators in the agricultural and aquacultural sectors stand to benefit, since coupling the production of fish and vegetables in one system led to a more resource friendly and efficient food production. It was highlighted that in aquaponic systems much less water is needed to produce the same amount of fish and plants, the environmental impact is drastically reduced due to waste avoidance and nutrient recycling and finally, additional fertiliser can be clearly reduced.
Guided tours and training activities for SMEs took place directly at the INAPRO demonstration sites (Fig. 76, Fig. 83). The intention behind these activities was to create new market and job opportunities including a reduction of European and worldwide barriers.
___ EXHIBITION, FAIRS, EVENTS AND ADVERTISEMENTS ___
The INAPRO partners took part at several fairs and exhibitions (Fig. 89). The INAPRO project was e.g. featured as part of the exhibition stands in the framework of the Horizon 2020 Info Week event on Societal Challenge 2 ‘Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy’. The Info Week, organised by European Commission and the Research Executive Agency, took place from the 14th to the 17th November 2017 in Brussels (Fig. 66). The ambitions of the project met perfectly well with the recent EU strategies under the Horizon 2020 framework to face the challenges of the dramatic development of the water resource situation in Europe and worldwide. INAPRO demonstrated links and synergies with related major water investment/implementation projects at local, regional or national level to help leverage the demand side.
At the EuroTier fair in Hanover 2016, the "Human Factor – Endless Prototyping" exhibition at the Drive VW-Group Forum in Berlin, and the Fish International trade exhibition 2017 INAPRO was showcased with one of the mobile urban demonstration objects and explained the project goals, activities and opportunities for a water saving and sustainable agriculture of the future (Fig. 84).
At the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften” in Germany the INAPRO project was shown part of the scientific advance in sustainable future food production, tomatoes from the aquaponic farms could be tasted by the visitors (Fig. 86, Fig. 88).
___ ELABORATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF DISSEMINATION TOOLS ___
The INAPRO consortium has used a wide range of dissemination tools to interact with and inform stakeholders about the project goals, results and final outcome.
Policy briefs have been written to inform and convince political stakeholders and decision-makers (Fig. 70).
The numbers of interested people reaching to the INAPRO project through the website (Fig. 58) and the social media channels have continued to increase over the project time. News and pictures about the INAPRO project alongside with articles describing or mentioning INAPRO have been published via Facebook and twitter (Fig. 60, Fig. 61). Up to date, INAPRO’s Facebook page gathers 1,111 ‘likes’.
Fact sheets (Fig. 59, Fig. 65), a project logo (Fig. 1), a leaflet (Fig. 64, Fig. 74), several press releases and 6 newsletters (Fig. 69) were designed and written in cooperation of AlienorEU (responsible for dissemination), the coordinator IGB and the local partners of the project team.
Several general and specialised articles have been published based on INAPRO newsletter and leaflets to inform the public about the potential of the INAPRO technology. Press releases have been published in international media to communicate the project progress (Fig. 62), e.g. to inform about production start at the INAPRO systems and project activities e.g. the visit of a group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to the INAPRO demonstration site in Waren. More than 125 public press articles about INAPRO were published in languages: English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Dutch and French (Fig. 63).
The INAPRO newsletter was sent to a list of around 590 subscribers. The list includes many policy-makers, business stakeholders, members of the scientific community, aquaponics enthusiasts and end users. The INAPRO 3D- model (Fig. 73) was showcased during several events, fairs and exhibitions e.g. the EXPO 2017 in Astana (Kazakhstan) at the and high level policy event “Bioeconomy” in Brussels in 2017 (Fig. 81).
An INAPRO movie clip was created to explain the principle and the goals and outcomes of the project. It can be downloaded from the webpage and has been presented at many expositions, fairs and events (Fig. 67, Fig. 68).
Information tables at the demonstration sites show the achievement and explain the project’s activities and achievements as well as the distinctiveness of production and products (Fig. 71). Some gadgets were even be used to be distributed mainly to the general public (Fig. 72).
=== EXPLOITATION ===
The mentioned widespread dissemination activities of all partners were the starting point for further exploitation of the results and achievements of the INAPRO project.
___ MARKET ANALYSIS ___
To ensure the successful application of the INAPRO system around the world, the partners have conducted a market analysis focused on different regions (Central and Southern Europe, Scandinavia and Asia). Economic feasibility and environmental sustainability are the desired benchmarks of the INAPRO aquaponics performance (Fig. 52 Fig. 53). Starting from this goal a SWOT analysis cumulates the main results of each country-specific analysis of the external and internal factors of INAPRO aquaponics seen as important to characterise the chance of INAPRO aquaponics on the market (Fig. 90). To improve the likelihood of the market access of the INAPRO system both common and specific recommendations for the different regions were derived from analysed data. The benefits of the INAPRO technology (economical, environmental, and societal) were demonstrated to different stakeholders (Fig. 91). It was highlighted that sustainability issues are INAPRO’s biggest strength help to face the threats of the market. Dissemination also comprised questionnaire based consumer surveys for Central and Southern Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. To adopt INAPRO systems widely, the benefit has to be shown and communicated to each relevant customer group.
___ EU AND WORLDWIDE FUNDED PROJECTS AND INITIATIVE ___
Several European funding mechanisms and projects have been identified and long-lasting cooperation has been established. The INAPRO partners successfully commenced further synergies and long- lasting cooperation with the several EU and international funded initiatives and projects.
All partners build up connections and synergies or were actively contacted by major commercial water and food related investment/implementation projects from local to international level to help leverage and praxis-transfer the project results.
EIP WATER ACTION GROUP
INAPRO is registered and participated as networking partner in the EIP Water Action group WIRE “Water & Irrigated agriculture Resilient Europe”. An extensive cooperation with the members of the Action Group has been established. Since October 2017, INAPRO has been included in the leaflet of the Action Group which is widely disseminated during conferences, workshops and events. WIRE contributes to make use of innovation to promote a more sustainable water management and more effective return of investments in agriculture. The goals defined by INAPRO project are fully in line with the priorities set out by the action group WIRE such as: 1) efficient water reuse in irrigation, 2) energy saving in irrigation, and 3) integrated agricultural water management under drought. WIRE helps customising existing or upcoming innovation to the farmers’ and growers’ needs, and to facilitate innovation uptake in the complex, multi-faceted irrigated agriculture reality and market (https://www.eip-water.eu/WIRE/).
PROJECT FERTINNOWA
The main objective of the FERTINNOWA thematic network is to create a meta-knowledge database of innovative technologies and practices for the fertigation of horticultural crops. FERTINNOWA will also build a knowledge exchange platform to evaluate existing and novel technologies (innovation potential, synergies, gaps, barriers) for fertigated crops and ensure wide dissemination to all stakeholders involved of the most promising technologies and best practices. The project is aimed at collecting, exchanging, showcasing and transferring innovative water management solutions and best practices in order to improve water use efficiency and quality and to reduce the environmental impact of fertigated horticultural production systems. INAPRO has been added to the list of stakeholders to be consulted in the framework of the project (https://www.fertinnowa.com/project/).
COST ACTION FA1305 EU AQUAPONICS HUB
Intensive cooperation has been established with the COST Action FA1305 EU Aquaponics Hub. The EU Aquaponics Hub focuses on three primary systems in three settings; 1) 'cities and urban areas' - urban agriculture aquaponics, 2) 'developing country systems' - devising systems and technologies for food security for local people and 3) 'industrial scale aquaponics' - providing competitive systems delivering cost effective, healthy and sustainable local food in the EU. Several INAPRO partners were active participating members of this action and even attended the “aquaponics.biz” conference on aquaponic SMEs that took place in Murcia on the 19th April 2017. On that occasion, the members of the Aquaponics Hub participated in a field visit to the INAPRO demonstration site managed by Tilamur in Murcia (ES) (https://euaquaponicshub.com/).
PROJECT ANNIE INC. HELPING CHILDREN AND ADULTS TO HELP THEMSELVES
Started in 2016 this Erasmus project and aims to set up a network of educational institutions, rural and urban aquaponic companies, regional governments and local authorities in order to establish aquaponics training centres. The project is especially addressed to youngsters, unemployed and disabled people, lifelong learners and other categories who do not fit easily in the labour market. In April 2017, around 50 ANNIE-participants visited the INAPRO demonstration site in Murcia (https://www.projectannie.org/).
PROJECT TRANSFER AQUAPONIC INNOVATIVE ECO-TECHNOLOGY TO EGYPT
This project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation builds upon the previous IGB-invention of a system to combine sustainable aquaculture and hydroponics. The objectives are to create the Al-Azhar University’s first aquaponic greenhouse in Egypt, which sells aquaponic technology and produces both organic vegetables and fish for educational purposes. The project also aimed to provide the integrated junior researchers with a unique hands-on international experience centred on sustainability issues. At the same time, this study also attempts to evaluate the growth performance and nutrient utilisation of Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus fed by magmeal diets as a cheaper alternative of fishmeal (https://www.researchgate.net/project/Transfer-Aquaponic-Innovative-Ecotechnology-to-Egypt-for-Sustainable-Aquaculture-and-Food-Production).
PROJECT KIKABONI FARM/ KENYA AQUAPONICS
The project will introduce multi-loop aquaponics to address (urban) food security issues in Kenya, using a peri-urban demonstration farm. The core goal of the proposed project is to develop and evaluate the business case for aquaponics in Kenya and other low and middle income countries. Food production systems that consume limited amounts of water, fertilisers, pesticides or labour, that preserve nutrients and are not dependent on soil fertility, have the potential to contribute substantially to food security whilst improving small-scale farmer incomes. Multi-loop aquaponics is able to combine all these factors. New to Africa, this project proposes to introduce this technology to Kenya to demonstrate its potential whilst designing commercial pathways for scaling. This project will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of aquaponics to farmers and farming organisations (e.g. cooperatives) in Kenya, and encourage them to engage in this form of (urban) agri-business (http://kikaboni-farm.com/).
AQUAPONICS - CLIMATE SMART SOLUTIONS TO ENHANCE FOOD SECURITY IN NAMIBIA
The Namibian government is currently conducting its re-greening policy and is also confronted with a need for policies concerning the challenges on food security, water shortage, and rising unemployment figures. The multi-loop aquaponic system can contribute significantly to these challenges. Multi-loop aquaponics is a water-efficient production system and makes it possible to grow food in the most arid areas of the world using novel desalination technologies and solar power. A 500-1000 m² system serves as a first pilot and as a showcase, developed together with Namibian stakeholders from government, research, and private sector. The pilot system is used for fine-tuning the system to the local circumstances, both physically and socio-economically. By including the stakeholders, conditions are created for scaling as soon as the system has shown its merits in Namibia (http://www.developonics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Aquaponics-in-Namibia-WUR.pdf).
BELMONT AND EU FUNDED PROJECT CITYFOOD
Members of the INAPRO consortium and other partners successfully applied for a Belmont and EU funded transnational project starting in 2018 (Fig. 94). The Belmont Forum is an international partnership that mobilises funding of environmental change research and accelerates its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability.
Feeding rapidly growing urban populations is a global challenge, which strains the Food-Water-Energy Nexus through increasing water and energy demands and environmental pollution. CITYFOOD provides innovative solutions to this daunting environmental challenge by integrating aquaponics (aqua-agriculture systems) into cities on a broader scale. Multitrophic food production systems optimise flows of food, water, energy, and waste while minimising resource needs, thus contributing to sustainable urban infrastructure. CITYFOOD connects diverse countries and contexts, each with their own challenges, within the framework set by the Belmont Forum and European Union 2020 strategies for sustainable and resilient cities (https://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/project/cityfood/).
PROJECT CUBES CIRCLE
The aim of the project CUBES circle which is already accepted and will get funding from the BMBF is to develop an innovative agricultural system for future production of high-value food (cf. section Ecological and economical performance). This agricultural system will not only be integrated into societal structures, but will also use synergies with established systems like urban settlements. A proposition for the success of such a production system is that it accepted by society and that it complies with sustainability criteria. INAPRO partners and members of the INAPRO project advisory committee belong to the project consortium of CUBES Circle.
The project´s vision of agricultural systems of the future is based on the idea that food will be produced in connected, mutually communicating and standardized production units, the so-called CUBES. Those CUBES are the basis for a closed food production system, which overcomes the weaknesses of earlier agricultural production systems by using ISO-standards, stackable units and a bio-cybernetic regulation approach. At the same time, the system integrates easily into the urban future. Due to its mobile nature, adaptability to a changing environment and an inherent scalability, the CUBES can be implemented in urban, rural and even desertified sites. Principles of closed cultivation methods will be integrated into a new process chain and the individual elements of the chain are intelligently connected and regulated. Thereby, synergies like the „Triple Zero®" concept can be used, enabling a production without additives and avoiding emissions and waste. (https://www.cubescircle.de/en/home/).
___ DEVELOPING COMMERCIAL PROJECTS ___
Cooperation between INAPRO partners and company stakeholders directly initialised several commercial projects that are recently in developing stage following the way paved by the INAPRO project and its demonstration farms.
LOCAL INITIATIVES AND PROJECTS
Several local projects were inspired by the basic idea and especially the successful larger scaled demonstrations within INAPRO as e.g. ROOF WATER-FARM (FKZ: 033W012, http://www.roofwaterfarm.com/ 2013); Topfarmers Berlin (https://www.stadtfarm.de/ 2015), Gemüsefischer. (https://www.holzmarkt.com/ 2015)
CHINESE COMMERCIAL FARM
In China the INAPRO principle found a lot of attention by commercial agriculturists. They build a second commercial farm additional to the described demonstration object in Shouguang and already made plans for an even bigger project INAPRO Town in the district Shandong (Fig. 92).
BELGIAN BIGH FOODMET FARM
The INAPRO partner Inagro initialised together with BIGH (Building Integrated GreenHouses) a large Hydroponics/Aquaponics project “Aquavlan2”. The built farm combines a 2000 m2 high-tech greenhouse and a 2000 m2 productive outdoor garden on the roof of Foodmet market hall, in the heart of Brussels, at the famous Abattoir site and consists of a state of the art aquaponic system where fish, fruits, vegetables and herbs are grown in a closed & zero waste loop (Fig. 93).
INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL PROMOTERS
Several industrial and financial promoters of the idea were attracted by INAPROs disseminated results and experiences and actively built up contacts with the goal to initialise further large commercial aquaponic projects at European and international level that are recently still in planning and development phase:
--- The Revobis Engineering Office for Energy- and Water-management plans in cooperation with IGB to equip e-traffic PV-power stations by using the surplus energy with aquaponic production units and attach restaurants to deliver sustainable and fresh food and combine this with the adventure of a transparent “Glas-House” factory (http://www.revobis.de/partner/).
--- The FWE Energy Solutions GmbH hired one person from INAPRO partner PAL to enhance their own competencies in aquaculture and initialise further market oriented activities combining aquaculture with sustainable agriculture and renewable energy solutions (e.g. biogas) in cooperation with IGB and possibly further partners (http://www.fwe.energy/).
--- The Swiss ocean v AG and INNOSAG GmbH contacted IGB for acting as scientific partner in commercial aquaponic projects intended to start in South-Africa Brits (Northwest province) and Paarl (Western Cape). In the case of successful implementation there are perspectives and financial budgets available for further large projects in African regions. (http://oceanv.ch/)
All these activities served as important steps towards the market introduction of INAPRO. The publicised achieved results, the distributed ideas and the solutions found will open up new market opportunities and overcome market barriers. By communicating the opportunities to end users, manufacturers, policy and the general public INAPRO opens a promising perspective for future sustainable aquaponic applications worldwide.
List of Websites:
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Websites:
http://www.inapro-project.eu/
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/111413_en.html
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Contact:
Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries
Müggelseedamm 310, 12587 Berlin, Germany
https://www.igb-berlin.de/
Prof. Werner Kloas,
Head of Department Ecophysiology and Aquaculture
+49 (0)30 64181 630
werner.kloas@igb-berlin.de
Dr. Daniela Baganz
Senior scientist
Department Biology and Ecology of Fishes
+49 (0)30 64141628
baganz@igb-berlin.de
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Dissemination:
AliénorEU sprl
11 rue de l’industrie 1000 Brussels, Belgium
http://www.alienoreu.com/
Elise Regairaz,
Founding Partner, Consultant in Environmental policies
+32 491 51 23 28
elise.regairaz@alienoreu.com
Sofia Minero,
EU Affairs Manager
+32 493 21 64 56
sofia.minero@alienoreu.com