EGESTABASE Tool

This tool is part of the SEI Urban Toolbox for Liveable Cities which has been developed by the SEI Initiative on City Health and Wellbeing. The Urban Toolbox is a collection of tools, developed within SEI or in coordination with SEI, aimed at supporting planning and decision-making for improving the health, well-being and resilience of city residents and urban systems more broadly.

GO TO THE SEI URBAN TOOLBOX FOR LIVEABLE CITIES HOMEPAGE

About the tool

EGESTABASE is an online evidence platform that aspires to comprehensively map scientific evidence on the recovery of nutrients from human excreta and municipal wastewater and their reuse in agriculture.

One of the key prerequisites to achieving and maintaining global food security is improved nutrient management along the entire food chain, which includes farming practices, food processing, consumer behaviour, and waste management.

Research and development related to the recovery and reuse of nutrients and carbon in human excreta and municipal wastewater has intensified over the past years, continuously unfolding new knowledge and technologies. Nevertheless, research impact, knowledge transfer, and practical application at present are limited. In particular, uptake, implementation, and upscaling of new and innovative solutions remain a key challenge.

This is why the END-OF-WASTEWATER project team has set out to create an online evidence platform intended to support and encourage acceptance, implementation and upscaling of innovative and sustainable solutions to recirculate nutrients and carbon from human excreta and other organic residuals to agriculture.

This Urban Toolbox article is an abridged version of the original text which can be accessed from the END-OF-WASTEWATER project website. Please access the original text for more detail, research purpose, full references, or to quote text. To learn more about Egestabase, refer to the papers available to download on the right-hand side.

How does this tool work?

EGESTABASE strives to compile evidence on circular nutrient solutions. In EGESTABASE Research, currently over 13 000 scientific papers are catalogued. These papers can be filtered by focus of the study, source stream, recovery technology, target nutrient, recovered product, and type of reuse. In addition, various recirculation options can be explored. In EGESTABASE Practice, currently around 100 implementation projects from Sweden are catalogued. These implementation examples can be filtered by type and scale of the implementation project, source stream, recovery technology, recovered product, and type of reuse.

Who might use this tool?

EGESTABASE aims to support actors in research and practice who wish to explore and discuss different ways forward towards safe and more circular use of nutrients in human excreta and municipal wastewater.

Which stakeholders are involved?

Researchers; policymakers; urban planners.

What stage of the process does this tool support?

• Identifying solutions
• Knowledge dissemination
• Evidence synthesis

Tool overview

EGESTABASE consists of two parts: an evidence database and an evidence explorer.

Using the platform:

There are different ways in which a user can explore the online evidence-base:

1. Find literature – on EGESTABASE Research, use the search bar and bibliographic filters to find relevant scientific papers. LIST – display the selected papers and explore the bibliographic information and the egestabase tags associated with each paper. HEATMAP – cross-tabulate the selected papers as a function of bibliographic information and the egestabase tags associated with each paper. MAP – show the selected papers on a map to explore the spatial distribution of research activity. TIMELINE – show the selected papers on a timeline to explore the temporal distribution of research activity.
2. Explore options – on EGESTABASE Research, explore and discover various ways to recover and reuse nutrients from human excreta and municipal wastewater; see how different technologies cluster together.
3. Find projects – on EGESTABASE Practice, find examples where nutrient recovery and reuse have been implemented in practice; this section for now is limited to evidence from Sweden.

Applications:

The EGESTABASE tool aims to:

• Become a trusted source of knowledge that supports diverse actors around the world who wish to contribute to increased nutrient and carbon recirculation in a way that supports healthy water, soil, food, and people.

Capabilities and resources required

EGESTABASE is an online platform. This means that to access and explore the collated evidence and data, a personal computer with active internet connection is required.

Potential integration with other tools

EGESTABASE complements the “Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies” and the “Guide to Sanitation Resource Recovery Products & Technologies“. Wherever possible, we have attempted to harmonise terminology.