Nature-based solutions | San Rocco di Piegara

Application ID
Application Name	Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and water pollution in agricultural regions. Lot 2: TSM in a continental environment
Application Location	Country	Italy	Country 2 (in case of transboundary applications)
	NUTS2 code
	River Basin District Code
	WFD Water Body Code
	Description		The project is located in San Rocco di Piegara, in the hearth of the Lessinia region (Veneto Region)
Application Site Coordinates (in ETRS89 or WGS84 coordinate system)	Latitude:		Longitude:
Target Sector(s)	Primary:		Pig breeding farm
	Secondary:
Implemented NWRM(s)	Measure #1:		FBA constructed wetland
	Measure #2:
	Measure #3:
	Measure #4:
Application short description	Until 2013, the farm was equipped with a conventional technological solution for the treatment of the liquid fraction of pig manure, an activated sludge followed by a membrane stage, designed to discharge to surface waters according to Italian law. During the renewal of the authorisation to discharge the regional Environmental Authority (ARPAV) requested to change the authorisation terms, requiring more stringent water quality standards to discharge on soil. After a successful pilot test and thanks to local funding (Rural Development plan, PSR as per the Italian terminology), the farm owner decided to install a “nature-based” treatment system which, thanks to lower operational and maintenance costs, was expected to make the re-opening of the farm financially sustainable. Due to limited available space, the chosen solution was a “hybrid” solution (NB and technological): an aerated constructed wetland (CW) plus a reverse osmosis (RO) final polishing stage. The new system was sized to treat the liquid fraction of the manure produced by half of the farm capability, i.e. 3000 pigs, maintaining the possibility of an upgrade to 6000 pigs just installing a new treatment stage, while the RO and the primary treatment (a centrifuge for solid/liquid separation) was designed for the full capacity of the farm, i.e. 6000 pigs.

Brief description of the problem to be tackled	Treatment of the liquid fraction of the manure produced by 3000 pigs, maintaining the possibility of an upgrade to 6000 pigs, to respect the strict Italian water quality standards to discharge on soil
What were the primary & secondary targets when designing this application?	Primary target #1:		Treat pig manure to reduce the pollutant load and allow the discharge on ground
	Primary target #2:
	Secondary target #1:		Reduce water pollution
	Secondary target #2:		Reduce OPEX costs
	Remarks:
Which specific types of pressures did you aim at mitigating?	Pressure #1:	Water pollution from pig manure	Nitrogen/Phosphorous
	Pressure #2:	High OPEX costs of the previous MBR system
	Pressure #3:
	Pressure #4:
	Remarks:
Which specific types of adverse impacts did you aim at mitigating?	Impact #1:	Water pollution from pig manure	Nitrogen/Phosphorous
	Impact #2:	High OPEX costs of the previous MBR system
	Impact #3:
	Impact #4:
	Remarks:
Which EU requirements and EU Directives were aimed at being addressed?	Requirement #1:
	Requirement #2:
	Requirement #3:
	Requirement #4:
	Remarks:
Which national and/or regional policy challenges and/or requirements aimed to be addressed?	The regional Environmental Authority (ARPAV) requested to change the authorisation to discharge on soil terms, requiring more stringent water quality standards

Project scale	Full-scale		Small scale project involving a farm, for a total surface of 0.224 hectares.
Time frame	Date of installation/construction (MM.YYYY)		Design year: 2016 Start-up year: 2017
	Expected average lifespan (life expectancy) of the application in years		The lifespan of the NBS is expected to be in the range of decades (around 30 years)
Responsible authority and other stakeholders involved	Name of responsible authority/ stakeholder		Role, responsibilities
	SASA srl		Intensive pig breeding company where the NBS is operating
	Municipality of Roverè Veronese		Municipality representing the local community
	Local farmers and Veneto Farmers Association		Beneficiary in terms of the environmental effects generated potential interest in the use of same technologies
The application was initiated and financed by	The NBS was financed by the Sasa Snc company thanks to local funding (Rural Development plan, PSR as per the Italian terminology). In 2013 the company was closed for two years, due to too high OPEX for swine wastewater treatment using MBR technological solution, Therefore, the choice for NBS technology was driven by financial reasons.
What were specific principles that were followed in the design of this application?	Achieving suine wastewater purification to discharge on soil, and to lower operational and maintenance costs. The full-scale CW WWTP was designed with a high level of flexibility in terms of possible functioning to enhance the denitrification.
Area (ha)	Effective area of the NBS:		0.045 ha (the CW WWTP is composed of 5 beds, each one of 448 m²)
Design capacity	up to 38 m³d^-1
Reference to existing engineering standards, guidelines and manuals that have been used during the design phase	Reference		URL
	1	Masi et al. (2017)	https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2017.180
	2
	3
	4
	5
Main factors and/or constraints that influenced the selection and design of the NWRM(s) in this application?	The design of the NWRMs was chosen in order to meet the necessities of decreasing the load of nitrogen and phosphorous to be discharged on soil. Due to limited available space, the chosen solution was a “hybrid” solution: an aerated constructed wetland (CW) plus a reverse osmosis (RO) final polishing stage.

What are the benefits and co-benefits of NWRMs in this application?	The environmental benefits of NWRMs are: the improved water quality (removal of pollutants from agricultural source); the simple management and consequent low O&M costs; the environmental benefits (climate change mitigation, lower energy consumption). The social benefits are represented by: better performance with nuisance, visual impact, and noise mitigation.
Financial costs		Soil discharge scenario	Surface water discharge scenario
	Total:
	Capital:	2.715.200,00 €	2.554.200,00 €
	Land acquisition and value:
	Operational:	88.700,00 €/year	87.100,00 €/year
	Maintenance:
	Other: Discounted Costs (T= 20 y; i= 5%)	3.111.398,00 €	3.639.659,00 €
Were financial compensations required? What amount?	Yes
	Total amount of money paid (in €): -
	Compensation schema: -
	Comments / Remarks: -
Economic costs	Actual income loss: -
	Additional costs: -
	Other opportunity costs: -
	Comments / Remarks: -
Which link can be made to the ecosystem services approach?	Being the treatment system an artificially areated wetland (a quite technological plant), located inside the breeding area, with limited capacity to offer side benefits in terms of biodiversity support and amenity, no estimation of the monetization of the ecosystem services has been made.

Source Type	Project Report
Source Author(s)	IRIDRA srl
Source Title	Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and water pollution in agricultural regions. Lot 2: TSM in a continental environment - Feasibility Study
Year of publication	2021
Editor/Publisher	European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Source Weblink
Key People	Name / affiliation	Contact details
	Fabio Masi	masi(at)iridra.com

Source Type	Journal article
Source Author(s)	Masi, F., Rizzo, A., Martinuzzi, N., Wallace, S.D., Van Oirschot, D., Salazzari, P., Meers, E. and Bresciani, R.
Source Title	Up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket and aerated constructed wetlands for swine wastewater treatment: a pilot study
Year of publication	2017
Editor/Publisher	Water Science and Technology
Source Weblink	https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2017.180
Key People	Name / affiliation	Contact details
	Fabio Masi	masi(at)iridra.com

Source Type	Conference proceedings papers
Source Author(s)	Rizzo A., Masi F., Dion Van Oirschot, Scott D. Wallace, Bresciani R.
Source Title	Aerated constructed wetlands for swine wastewater treatment: experiences from the start-up of a full scale system in Italy
Year of publication	2018
Editor/Publisher	16th IWA International Conference on Wetland Systems for Water Pollution Control, ICWS 2018
Source Weblink
Key People	Name / affiliation	Contact details
	Anacleto Rizzo	rizzo(at)iridra.com

Source Type	Book
Source Author(s)	Kadlec, R.H. and Wallace, S.
Source Title	Treatment wetlands
Year of publication	2009
Editor/Publisher	CRC press
Source Weblink
Key People	Name / affiliation	Contact details

Source Type	Journal article
Source Author(s)	Nivala, J., Wallace, S., Headley, T., Kassa, K., Brix, H., van Afferden, M. and Müller, R.
Source Title	Oxygen transfer and consumption in subsurface flow treatment wetlands.
Year of publication	2013
Editor/Publisher	Ecological Engineering
Source Weblink	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.08.028
Key People	Name / affiliation	Contact details
	Jaime Nivala	jaime.nivala(at)gmail.com

Dominant Land Use type(s)	Dominant land use	Agricultural use
	Secondary land use	Tourism
	Other important land use
	Remarks: -
Climate zone	temperate sub-continental
Soil type
Average Slope
Mean Annual Rainfall	600 - 1100 mm
Mean Annual Runoff
Average Runoff coefficient (or % imperviousness on site)
	Remarks: -
Characterization of water quality status (prior to the implementation of the NWRMs)	There is no detailed information available about the water quality status prior to the implementation of the NWRM.
Comment on any specific site characteristic that influences the effectiveness of the applied NWRM(s) in a positive or negative way	Positive way: -
	Negative way: -

Impact category	Impact description	Impact quantification
		Parameter value; units and/or	% change in parameter value as compared to the state prior to the implementation of the NWRM(s)
Water quality Improvements	The aerated constructed wetlands and remove nutrients and contaminants thanks to physical (adsorption and sedimentation) and several biological processes. The CW WWTP showed high mass removal efficiencies on average.	TSS (%) COD (%) N-NH4+ (%) TKN (%) TN (%) TP (%)	87 88 90 87 73 80

Monitoring requirements		The material flow analysis is based on monitored data gathered during two sampling campaigns, one at the start-up of the WWTP (from 10 October 2017 to 8 February 2018 - Rizzo et al., 2018) and a second after 1 year of functioning (from January 2019 to January 2020)
Maintenance requirements		N/A
What are the administrative costs?		N/A

Which assessment methods and practices are used for assessing the biophysical impacts?		The material flow analysis is based on monitored data and is also complemented by literature data in terms of effluent wastewater quantity estimation, which will be assessed on the basis of both methods for evapotranspiration proposed by literature (Kadlec and Wallace, 2009) and flow meter available at RO treatment. Literature data are also used to test the proper functioning of NBS in terms of oxygen transfer rate (Nivala et al., 2013).
Which methods are used to assess costs, benefits and cost-effectiveness of measures?		Costs: Reverse engineering Benefits and Cost-effectiveness: Value transfer method
How cost-effective are NWRM's compared to "traditional / structural" measures?		N/A
How do (if applicable) specific basin characteristics influence the effectiveness of measures?		N/A
What is the standard time delay for measuring the effects of the measures?		N/A

What were the main implementation barriers?		Lack of space, therefore “intensification” with appropriate technologies (aeration, stripping) was implemented.
What were the main enabling and success factors?		The choice for NBS technology was driven by financial reasons. A non-repayable loan provided by the Regional Rural Development Plan covered more than 40% of the investment costs, however the company would have faced the risk of the full investment costs, to be able to reopen the Piegara pig farm.
Financing		40% of the investment costs were provided by the Regional Rural Development Plan, the company paid the remaining costs.
Flexibility & Adaptability		N/A
Transferability		A pig farm may only be interested in setting up a treatment system when fields to spread the pig manure are not available nearby: in this case the high cost of transporting manure over a long distance makes the solid/liquid separation and the construction of a treatment plant for the liquid fraction interesting for the company. NBS would highly benefit from a public financial support, at least for the first 10-15 years, until they get an established position in the market.

A small case nature-based solution for pig manure treatment: the San Rocco di Piegara case

Open Basic information

Open Policy Context and Design Targets

Open Site Characteristics

Open Design & Implementation Parameters

Open Biophysical Impacts

Open Socio-Economic Information

Open Monitoring & Maintenance requirements

Open Performance metrics and Assessment criteria

Open Main risks, implications, enabling factors and preconditions

Open Lessons learned

Open References