Exactly five years ago, 196 countries signed the UN Paris Climate Agreement. The ambitious agreements have not been collecting dust over the past five years, to the great delight of Rik Leemans, professor of Environmental Systems Analysis at WUR. He feels that global warming is being taken seriously at last. And with the proposed measures it looks like we will manage to significantly curb the increase in temperature over the next 80 years.
Together with project partner Dow Benelux in Terneuzen, ETE researcher Pradip Saha developed a method to clean saline, industrial wastewater. A complex task, since single technologies didn’t do the job. Therefore, he combined three different technologies for an effective cleaning: oxidation to remove most organic compounds followed by the use of constructed wetlands to remove some remaining organics. The last step included salt removal by standard membrane desalination technology.
Every year, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) hosts the prestigious Green Talents – International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development. The award honours young researchers each year. The winners come from numerous countries and scientific disciplines and are recognised for their outstanding achievements in making our societies more sustainable.
Glory Ikponmwosa Edwards (WUR) works on developing scenarios for pathways to a sustainable rice system in Nigeria. She develops these pathways from a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods including stakeholder participation.