Field partner in Senegal for the water-nutrient-energy nexus (FNSSA)

SIA — Aquatic Field Station (Saint-Louis, Senegal) offers its field station and an operational nexus case study to a research team or consortium preparing a proposal on HORIZON-CL6-2027-02-FARM2FORK-02-two-stage. We would join as field partner and African beneficiary.

For several years, we have worked on Ceratophyllum demersum, an invasive aquatic plant, which clogs irrigation canals and water points in the Senegal River valley, with US partners (Rohr et al., Nature, 2023). Its removal links the three dimensions of the nexus:

• Water: mechanized removal restores water flow and access, and reduces the habitat of the snails that transmit schistosomiasis

• Nutrients: the harvested biomass is composted and returned to farmland to raise agricultural productivity

• Energy: the same biomass feeds biodigesters that produce biogas, with a digestate usable as fertilizer

We put at the disposal of the consortium:

• Our station in Saint-Louis (laboratory, ponds, 1 ha experimental site) and the removal, composting and biodigestion set-up already in place

• Study sites in irrigated perimeters, including rice-fish co-culture plots (Nature Sustainability, 2026), and access to 100+ villages with a team of community facilitators

• A team of about 20 for experimental set-up, data acquisition, field logistics and follow-up

• Help bringing in Senegalese partners towards the three African entities required