Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields: Success Cases in Mexico (original) (raw)
Related papers
Desalination: A Means of Increasing Irrigation Water Sources for Sustainable Crop Production
Desalination, 2017
Globally, water resources for agricultural production have been on the decline. This is associated with increase in water demand over limited resources and poor quality water that adversely affects crop quality and yield and deteriorates soil properties. Even though soil salinity has been affecting agriculture for thousands of years, significant research has been conducted only in the past 100 years. Desalination, which is the process of reducing the salt content in water to an acceptable level, could be an alternative for improving water quality, thereby increasing water sources and reducing the competition among various users of water. Thus, desalination could lead to improved crop quality, improved crop yield, enhanced all-year round crop production, and as such become an important tool for effective agricultural water management.
Irrigation with desalinated water: A step toward increasing water saving and crop yields
Water Resources Research, 2015
We examined the impact of two different approaches to managing irrigation water salinity: salt leaching from the field (''conventional'' management) and water desalination before field application (''alternative'' management). Freshwater commonly used for irrigation (FW) and desalinated water (DS) were applied to the high-water-demanding crop banana at four different rates. Both irrigation rate and water salinity significantly affected yield. DS application consistently produced higher yields than FW, independently of irrigation rate. The highest yield for FW-irrigation was achieved with the highest irrigation rate, whereas the same yield was obtained in the case of DS-irrigation with practically half the amount of water. Yield decreased with FWirrigation, even when the water salinity, EC i , was lower than the limit considered safe for soil and crops. Irrigating with FW provided a massive amount of salt which accumulated in the rhizosphere, inducing increased osmotic potential of the soil solution and impairing plant water uptake. Furthermore, applying the ''conventional'' management, a significant amount of salt is leached from the rhizosphere, accumulating in deeper soil layers, and eventually reaching groundwater reservoirs, thus contributing to the deterioration of both soil and water quality. Removal of salt excess from the water before it reaches the field by means of DS-irrigation may save significant amounts of irrigation water by reducing the salt leaching requirements while increasing yield and improving fruit quality, and decreasing salt load in the groundwater.
Feasibility of desalination as an alternative to irrigation with water high in salts
Desalination, 2017
Interest in desalination to provide irrigation water is on the rise, but there are few tools enabling consideration of feasibility based on both crop responses and economic parameters. We present a biological-physical model for crop response to salinity coupled with economic calculations of farm based costs and benefits to determine profitability of irrigation of various crops in Israel as a function of water salinity. We then evaluate the economic feasibility of investment in farm-or community-scale desalination plants to supply high quality water as an alternative to irrigation with brackish water. The predicted profit from production of high-value, salinity-sensitive crops irrigated with either pure desalinated or desalinated blended with locally available brackish water was high enough to justify desalination for agriculture at prices expected in the market today, at least for mid-to large-capacity scale plants (> 1 MCM/ yr). The coupled model, accessible as an online application (http://app.agri.gov.il/AnswerApp/) was demonstrated as an effective tool to evaluate the sensitivity of any or all variables affecting crop profitability, combining both sound agronomic, biological and physical understanding of crop growth and response processes with sound economic data and considerations.
Experimental evaluation of irrigation methods for soil desalinization
Paddy and Water Environment, 2014
Soil salinization has provided a serious threat for global agriculture throughout human history. It is becoming ever more prevalent as human land use intensifies in recent years, and the reclamation is one of major challenges in agroecology. Flood irrigation is a typical method for leaching saline soil. Yet the practice needs a large amount of water, and it is difficult to remove salt uniformly throughout soil layers. In this study, an experiment was conducted to evaluate leaching efficiencies of four different methods, namely: flood irrigation, spray irrigation, paper-covered flood irrigation, and puddling irrigation. Flood irrigation was applied at three plots with different infiltration capacities. Spray irrigation, papercovered flood irrigation, and puddling irrigation were applied at other three plots with medium infiltration capacities. Results showed that salt removal rates of flood irrigation tended to be higher near the surface of soil with smaller infiltration capacity, and that spray irrigation, paper-covered flood irrigation, and puddling irrigation were more efficient in removing salt than flood irrigation. Paper-covered irrigation was the only leaching method that reduced horizontal heterogeneities in salt content, while flood irrigation and puddling irrigation significantly increased the horizontal heterogeneities. The present study indicated that leaching efficiencies were highly affected by irrigation intensity and also by irrigation water volume only when irrigation intensity was considerably low, and that paper-covered irrigation is an efficient method in removing salt homogeneously from soil profile. Further studies need to be conducted to optimize irrigation intensity and water volume for given soil and water environmental conditions. Keywords Soil desalinization Á Leaching Á Electrical conductivity Á Salt removal rate Á Infiltration capacity Á Irrigation intensity 50 % of cropland in the world (Flowers and Yeo 1995), and it is common on irrigated lands of the arid and semiarid regions in Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America, with a variety of extents, nature, and properties (Rengasamy 2006). Current estimates of the salt-affected soils as a percent of irrigated lands for different countries are 27 % for India, 28 % for Pakistan, 13 % for Israel, 20 % for Australia, 15 % for China, 50 % for Iraq, and 30 % for Egypt (Stockle 2001). The formation of salinized soil is not only related to soil parent materials, climate, and topography, but also induced by anthropogenic activities, in particular, by improper irrigation practices. Improper quantity and quality of irrigation water and poor soil internal drainage condition often lead to soil salinization (Kitamura et al. 2006). Excessive amounts of salt have adverse effects on soil physical and
Spanish experience in desalination for agriculture
Desalination and Water Treatment, 2012
Desalination in Spain has a long story. From the early 60s many installations for drinking water supply were built, mainly in the Canary Islands. Soon it was assumed that other users would need water supply at competitive prices. Agriculture was one of them. The leap from the islands to mainland was in the 90s, when there was a substantial water shortage. In this decade, more than 200 installations were built for this application, mainly treating brackish water. More recently, the installation of large capacity plants from Spanish government programme “AGUA” would mean the end of small plants for agriculture although a discussion about the price for desalinated water arose between the government and the agricultural users. In this paper, we will describe the Spanish experience in desalination for agriculture from an historic point of view. We will also discuss the economic aspects such as the price of water obtained from desalination plants compared with other sources such as superficial or reused water as well as the percentage of water costs in agriculture production and other beneficial aspects such as increased production. With the experience gained for more than 17 years and 60 different size installations built, this paper will be illustrated with some examples where farmers have built their own desalination plants. Another interesting aspect will be to show how to do the planning for an irrigation system for agriculture based on desalination.
Membrane desalination and water re-use for agriculture: State of the art and future outlook
Membrane desalination and water re-use for agriculture: State of the art and future outlook, 2020
Membrane-based desalination technologies for agricultural applications are widely applied in many countries around the world. Sustainable and cost-effective desalination technologies, such as reverse osmosis (RO), membrane distillation, forward osmosis, membrane bioreactor, and electrodialysis, are available to provide treated water, but the pure water product does not contain the required level of nutrients to supply agricultural fields. This can be overcome by the use of blended water to meet the required quality of irrigation water for crop production, which is expensive in areas lacking in freshwater resources. The adoption of a hybrid system offers many advantages, such as generating drinking water and water enriched with nutrient at low cost and energy consumption if natural power is used. This review focusses on summarizing the current and recent trends in membrane desalination processes used for agricultural purposes. The challenges being faced with desalinating seawater/brackish water and wastewater are discussed. A specific focus was placed on the viability of hybrid desalination processes and other advanced recovery systems to obtain valuable irrigation water. A comparison between various membrane desalination technologies in terms of treatment efficiency and resource recovery potential is discussed. Lastly, concluding remarks and research opportunities of membrane technologies are analyzed. We concluded that the ED process can be utilized to minimize the energy requirements of other T membrane technologies. The MD coupled with ED system can also be utilized to generate high quality irrigation water at low energy requirement. The FO-ED hybrid system exhibited excellent performance and very low energy consumption as compared to other hybrid systems.
An Initial Evaluation on the Feasibility of Desalinated Water in Agriculture
The positive impact of desalinated water on agricultural crops is becoming clearer through different projects and experiments, raising the need to check the feasibility of desalinated water in agriculture. In this work the authors tested the impact of desalinated water in terms of salts on the growth of bananas in the short term, and the economic feasibility of establishing small desalination units for small cooperatives or individual farmers. The conclusions? The investment in desalination is certainly worthwhile.
Solar desalination for sustainable brackish water management in arid land agriculture
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 2013
An agricultural facility aimed at sustainable production of crops in arid environments was built and tested in Hatzeva, Israel. The facility relies on solar-powered desalination with nanofiltration membranes to treat the local brackish water (EC = 2.32 dS m − 1 ) and produce high-quality irrigation water (EC = 0.71 dS m − 1 ). Red beet, a salt-tolerant crop, was grown with the concentrate stream (EC = 4.73 dS m − 1 ), eliminating the need for concentrate disposal and with potential net economic benefits. Agricultural experiments with variable irrigation water quality, application rate, and four staple crops (potato, maize, millet and sorghum) were conducted over two growing seasons between September 2010 and June 2011. The desalination plant operated at low pressure (4.3 bar) and energy consumption (1.37 kWh m − 3 ) and with little maintenance over the entire study period. The results of the agricultural experiments consistently showed that irrigation with desalinated water promoted more efficient use of resources such as water and inorganic fertilizers. A reduction of 25% in the irrigation rate and use of fertilizers compared with best-practice guidelines was achieved with desalinated water, with no detectable detrimental effect on the marketable yield. On the contrary, a statistically significant yield increase was observed for sorghum (+ 10%). An increase in water productivity with desalinated water was observed for all four staple crops.
Membrane technology for water production in agriculture: Desalination and wastewater reuse
Desalination, 2015
Water shortage influences also an adequate and sustainable food production. • Water quality in agriculture does not have the same requirements as for drinking water. • Seawaters and wastewaters properly treated can be used for irrigation. • Membrane operations usually used in agriculture are discussed. • Novel membrane technologies such as fertilizer draw FO and MD are also described.
DESALINATION AND WATER TREATMENT, 2021
Agriculture drainage water (ADW) can be desalinized and could provide water resources for irrigation. The major concern is the excess of soluble salts in ADW. In this sense, it is possible to use reverse osmosis (RO) system plants to reduce salinity and provide irrigation water of high quality. Several parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total suspended solids, etc., should be taken into consideration before planning the installation of a reverse osmosis system. In this study, the water quality of an ancient drainage system of the SE of Spain was evaluated. The final results are directly applicable to help decision-makers and engineers to take an adequate decision, in order to select which of the drainage canals is the best option to produce desalinized water at low cost.