Articles
Non-conventional water sources for irrigation: understanding and addressing underlying issues of water quality and sustainability
Article number
1468_1
Pages
1 – 8
Language
English
Abstract
Water scarcity and climate change threaten irrigated agriculture, particularly in dry locations.
Semi-arid and arid regions are typically the first to utilize non-conventional, often low-quality (high salinity) sources of water for irrigation.
The need for leaching salts out of the root zone mobilizes contaminants and pollutants, including but not exclusive to the salts themselves, to deep soils and groundwater.
In many cases of arid regions where there is no natural hydrological flow to the sea, strategies built on the utilization of low- or marginal-quality water are, in the long term, not environmentally sustainable.
Treated wastewater brings potentially positive additions of plant nutrients along with risks to crops, the environment, and human health, including salinity, disease agents, and numerous other contaminants of concern.
Desalination offers an opportunity to reduce the leaching-contamination cycle, decrease water requirements, and increase the sustainability of irrigated arid-region agriculture.
Of course, desalination comes at a relatively high price due to energy and facility costs.
Inland desalination of brackish water and desalination of wastewater are additionally challenged with the question of brine disposal.
The Israeli experience can be used to demonstrate the costs and management challenges when irrigating with water containing relatively high concentrations of salts (brackish groundwater and recycled municipal wastewater) and how large-scale desalination of seawater can influence dry-region irrigated agriculture via both direct and indirect (via recycled wastewater) use.
Semi-arid and arid regions are typically the first to utilize non-conventional, often low-quality (high salinity) sources of water for irrigation.
The need for leaching salts out of the root zone mobilizes contaminants and pollutants, including but not exclusive to the salts themselves, to deep soils and groundwater.
In many cases of arid regions where there is no natural hydrological flow to the sea, strategies built on the utilization of low- or marginal-quality water are, in the long term, not environmentally sustainable.
Treated wastewater brings potentially positive additions of plant nutrients along with risks to crops, the environment, and human health, including salinity, disease agents, and numerous other contaminants of concern.
Desalination offers an opportunity to reduce the leaching-contamination cycle, decrease water requirements, and increase the sustainability of irrigated arid-region agriculture.
Of course, desalination comes at a relatively high price due to energy and facility costs.
Inland desalination of brackish water and desalination of wastewater are additionally challenged with the question of brine disposal.
The Israeli experience can be used to demonstrate the costs and management challenges when irrigating with water containing relatively high concentrations of salts (brackish groundwater and recycled municipal wastewater) and how large-scale desalination of seawater can influence dry-region irrigated agriculture via both direct and indirect (via recycled wastewater) use.
Authors
A. Ben-Gal
Keywords
brackish groundwater, desalinated water, leaching, recycled wastewater, salinity
Groups involved
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