Sustainability Webinar | Sustainable Agri-Food Systems: Circular Solutions for Water, Nutrients, and Bioresources in the Mediterranean
the chair
The Mediterranean agri-food sector is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, water scarcity, and soil degradation, highlighting the urgent need for circular and eco-efficient solutions. The present webinar is organized in the framework of the MedInCircle project that is addressing these challenges by developing an integrated approach to water, nutrient, and bioresource management, fostering sustainability and resilience across the agri-food chain.
This webinar will provide an overview of MedInCircle’s innovative strategies and present key results from the first 18 months of research, mainly focusing on circular solutions for water. The project is developing modular technologies for on-site treatment, recovery, and valorization of wastewater and organic waste from Mediterranean agri-food activities. A key focus is the development of biological treatments using moving bed membrane bioreactors to ensure safe ferti-irrigation and enable the direct reuse of agricultural drainage water. By integrating cutting-edge wastewater treatment, agronomic practices, and circular resource recovery, MedInCircle is paving the way for a more sustainable Mediterranean agri-food sector. This webinar will explore the project’s progress, key findings, and the potential impact of these solutions on agriculture, water management, and environmental sustainability.
Date: 13 May 2025
Time: 10:00 am CEST | 4:00 pm CST (Asia)
Webinar ID: 879 3228 2367
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet the Event Chair
Meet Our Speakers
Prof. Dr. Erkan Sahinkaya
Bioengineering Department, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Türkiye;
Erkan Sahinkaya is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Istanbul Medeniyet University. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Middle East Technical University. He has delivered lectures on wastewater treatment, anaerobic treatment, reaction engineering, and entrepreneurship. His research focuses on biological wastewater treatment, sulfate reduction, autotrophic denitrification, and water recovery using innovative membrane processes. He has co-authored over 110 publications and has received more than 4,000 citations, with an h-index of 41, according to the Web of Science.
Prof. Eric Van Hullebusch
Université Paris Cité, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Paris, France;
Prof. Eric D. van Hullebusch received his PhD in Aquatic Chemistry and Microbiology from the Université de Limoges (France) in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands), where his research focused on optimizing anaerobic granular sludge reactors by studying the speciation, bioavailability, and dosing strategies of trace metals.
In 2005, he was appointed Associate Professor in Biogeochemistry of Engineered Ecosystems at Université Paris-Est (France). From 2016 to 2018, he worked at IHE Delft as Chair Professor in Environmental Science and Technology and Head of the Pollution Prevention and Resource Recovery Chair Group. In 2018, he joined the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (France) as a Full Professor in Biogeochemistry of Engineered Ecosystems.
Prof. van Hullebusch has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers (18,000+ citations, h-index: 69) in the field of biogeochemistry of metals and metalloids in engineered ecosystems. His current research primarily focuses on the implementation of novel biohydrometallurgical approaches for the recovery of technology-critical elements, as well as (bio)remediation of polluted soils, with a particular emphasis on poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Dr. Francesco Di Capua
Department of Engineering, University of Basilicata, Italy;
Francesco Di Capua is Tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Engineering of University of Basilicata (Potenza, Italy), where he holds the course of Chemical Plants for Depollution at the master’s degree program of Environmental Engineering. Dr. Di Capua was awarded a joint PhD degree in Environmental Technologies by three European academic institutions. He is Primary Investigator of the project Smart Sustainable Saving Solutions for WAter and wastewater Treatment (S4WAT) financed by the European Union through the PRIN PNRR 2022 call. His research focuses on nutrient removal and recovery from waste streams, sludge reduction and valorization, anaerobic digestion, biogas upgrading, waste biorefinery, and adsorption of contaminants. Francesco Di Capua is author of 57 Scopus-indexed scientific publications with over 2,300 citations and a H-index of 25.
Sponsors and Partners
Organizer
This webinar has been organized in the framework of the research project Future-proofing the Mediterranean agri-food chain through integrated and circular management of contaminant-safe water, nutrients and bioresources (MedInCircle) that is part of the PRIMA Programme supported by the European Union.
The webinar was focused on the circular agricultural management of water, nutrients and bioresources with three presentations on drainage water treatment (Prof. Sahinkaya), wastewater reuse legislation (Prof. van Hullebusch) and agricultural valorization of organic waste (Prof. Di Capua), showing the main results of the MedInCircle project obtained so far.
An interesting scientific discussion followed the three presentations. We hope to organize a follow-up webinar at the end of 2025 to show the future results of the project.
The webinar was hosted via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found below. In order to learn about future webinars, you can sign up to our newsletter by clicking “Subscribe” at the top of the page.
Sustainable Fresh Produce Processing and By-Products Utilization
Guest Editors: Dr. Jiayi Wang, Dr. Yuanyuan Hou, Dr. Yating Zhao
Deadline for submission: 12 September 2025