ATTENAGUA

Attenagua aims to develop a method to identify the best locations for the exploitation of groundwater in coastal areas recharged by the river to enjoy the soil treatment capacity of wetlands, which is transferable to other alluvial plains of SUDOE region.

     The project proposes to combine three complementary lines in the definition of sites for the exploitation of groundwater:
         Characterization of pollution from multicontaminantes (metals, pesticides, organic matter, nitrate ...)
         The ecotoxicological and biodiversity functional approach to characterize the role of bacterial communities and aquatic invertebrates associated with the groundwater table in the natural attenuation processes of pollution.
         The hydrogeological modeling and biogeochemistry, to characterize the hydrological functioning and self-purification of the aquifer through interaction with the river and test different active zone management scenarios to reduce pollution.

The proposed approach will be tested in four cases of contrasting studies:
Based on the results obtained in the study of different places, we propose indicators to map areas of natural attenuation of pollutants in accordance with the hydrogeological characteristics of the aquifer, ie, we set a great location method of wells in alluvial areas near rivers to reduce the water production costs.