European project VicInAqua

Integrated aquaculture based on sustainable water recirculating system for the Victoria Lake Basin

VicInAqua will follow an integrated approach in order to develop a sustainable combined sanitation and recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) for wastewater treatment and reuse in agriculture in the Victoria Lake Basin area. In this decentralized integrated treatment system wastewater from households and fish processing industry as well as RAS production water will radically reduce stress on the sensitive ecosystems of the Lake Victoria and will contribute to food and health security. It will be operated fully autonomous powered by renewable energies (PV, biogas). The RAS will particularly produce high quality fingerlings of the local fish species to supply the pond aquaculture of the area with stocking material.

The innovative core idea of the project is to develop and test new technologies which enable the integration of sanitation with the aquaculture in a sustainable manner. The core of the project concept is to develop and test a novel self-cleaning water filters which consist of a highly efficient particle filter as well as a membrane bioreactor (MBR) as principal treatment unit within a combined treatment system where the nutrient rich effluent water will be used for agricultural irrigation. The surplus sludge from both filter systems will be co-digested with agricultural waste and local water hyacinth to produce biogas.

The overall concept will promote sound approaches to water management for agriculture, taking into consideration broader socio-economic factors and also fomenting job creation and greater gender balance in decision-making. The pursued approach will be perfectly in line with the strategic guidelines of the Rio+20 and the post-2015 development framework.

The project is coordinated by the Institute for Applied Research of the University of Applied Sciences Karlsruhe. Eleven partners join their forces in research, exploitation and communication. Among them are researchers and public authorities from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum is a project partner and supports: