Human activities have significant impacts on the environment, with pollution being a primary driver in the decline of biodiversity and functionality of aquatic ecosystems. Essential human activities, notably in healthcare and agriculture, contribute to pharmaceutical product (PP) pollution, which has been identified as a significant stressor to aquatic biodiversity. In addition,insufficient PP removal in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) has been repeatedly reported, leading to PP concentrations inwater bodies that exceed safe levels and pose a threat to aquatic life, ecosystem health and eventually human wellbeing.

Taking the MISSION of safeguarding aquatic biodiversity in urban and rural waters exposed to variable pressure of PP pollution,NBS4AQUAMISSION aims to leverage nature-based systems (NBS) in a combined triad solution of wetlands, innovative materialsand bioaugmentation to 1) mitigate PP pollution impacts posed on the aquatic biodiversity, and 2) assess the NBS implementationeffects over time and space.

Our project spans four diverse European demo sites, chosen for their varied climatic, geographic,demographic, and cultural contexts. Such variation is crucial for tailoring our NBS strategy and ensuring they are effective and reproducible across different environmental and societal settings. This will enable the development of customized NBS adapted tothese characteristics and create a blueprint for scalability and replication to other regions and/or countries. We will actively engage the key stakeholders and the public (promoting citizen science) through workshops and volunteer crowdsourcing to reach an understanding between science, policy and societal needs.

Ultimately, we will develop effective policy recommendations for the implementation of the proposed NBS and the preservation of the aquatic environment.

The outcomes of this transnational andinterdisciplinary project will have a wide-ranging impacts on different dimensions: (i) economic benefits (lower energy consumption and cost-saving in quaternary water treatment processes by reducing the concentration of pollutants and creation of green jobs through the proposed NBS); (ii) social impacts (improvement of people’s health and well-being); (iii) environmental
effects (protection and recovery of biodiversity through the improvement of water quality and ecosystem services); and (iv) political implications (generation of relevant policy recommendations for the protection of the aquatic environment and improvement of water management).

The project is well aligned with the BIODIVERSA+ call on Theme B: NBS mitigating anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss, with our primary focus on reducing PP pollution in aquatic ecosystems; contributing tohuman wellbeing, by ensuring better water quality and healthy ecosystems (Theme A); and the transformative change of oursociety, by incorporating participatory model and stakeholders engagement approaches (Theme C).