Water and wastewater management for sustainable viticulture and oenology in South Portugal – a review

Abstract

Assessing sustainability of the wine industry requires improved characterization of its environmental impacts, namely in terms of water use. Therefore, quantification of water inputs and wastewater (WW) outputs is needed to highlight inefficiencies in wine production and related consequences for the environment. Water use and WW generation in irrigated viticulture and oenology remains insufficiently quantified for dry Mediterranean regions (e.g. South Portugal). This paper is focused on wine production under warm and dry climate conditions in the winegrowing region of Alentejo (South Portugal). This region experiences increasingly dry conditions, while the irrigated area keeps expanding, which puts exacerbates the pressure on existing local and regional water resources. Additionally, more erratic variation in climate conditions and the tendency for increasingly extreme climate events (e.g. heat waves) pose more challenges to Alentejo’s wine sector. We conclude that quantitative information on water use and management is not always easy to obtain or access, which hinders improved strategies and/or policies for water use at farm, winery and region-level. Up-to-date statistics and robust metrics can help to better characterize water use and WW flows for Alentejo’s wine region, while optimizing management in vineyards and wineries, in companies and region-wide. The paper is focused on a “Farm-Winery” scenario, which is the most common in South Portugal’s wine sector

Are Land Use Options in Viticulture and Oliviculture in Agreement with Bioclimatic Shifts in Portugal?

“…Even though the increase in the vineyard area in regions with cooler and more humid climates can be considered a climate-smart adaptation strategy, thus enhancing the climate resilience of the sector, the pronounced bioclimatic shifts observed in these regions may considerably affect the regional terroirs and, as a result, the wine typicity and style [40]. In addition, the emergence of vast areas with irrigated vineyards under the typically warm and dry conditions of southern Portugal will threaten the already limited water resources [41], thereby requiring more efficient water management and water-saving agricultural practices. The lack of water availability may indeed challenge the future sustainability of the sector in this region.…”

Overview of Membrane Science and Technology in Portugal

“…The role of membrane processing in the agro-industry is discussed in detail in [117,118], and a few representative recent examples are briefly presented.…”

Application of NaCl Plant Extracts to Decrease the Costs of Microfiltration for Winery Wastewater Treatment

“…Portugal is a typical Mediterranean wine producer, with around 195,000 ha of vineyards and a wine production of about 6.7 MhL in 2019 [1]. It is the 11th largest producer worldwide and the 9th largest amongst global wine exporters [2]. This high amount of wine production leads to the high generation of winery wastewaters (WW) during the different activities carried out for wine elaboration, mainly originating from the washing and rinsing operations of fermentation tanks, barrels, and other items [3].…”

“…To our knowledge, the combined CFD-microfiltration processes have never been applied to winery wastewater treatment and its effects in organic carbon, turbidity, total suspended solids and phenolic compounds reduction are unknown. Due to the lack of information regarding the production and application of NaCl plant extracts in CFD process and the application of microfiltration in winery wastewater treatment, the objectives of this work are as follows: (1) to characterize the plants, (2) to evaluate the production and application of NaCl plant extracts in CFD process, (3) to evaluate the effect of microfiltration in WW treatment; (4) to study the effect of the CFD process in microfiltration enhancement and cost reduction.…”