Landscape Irrigation Research Articles

The effects of sugar beet rinse water irrigation on the soil enzyme activities

ABSTRACTSugar beet rinse water (SBRW) irrigation is a widely used practice in the northeast of China that reduces the amount of fresh water needed for agricultural irrigation. In addition, soil enzyme activities are important indicators of soil functions such as nutrient cycling and soil fertility. The effects of SBRW irrigation on five types of soil enzymatic activities including invertase, urease, neutral phosphatase, catalase, and polyphenol oxidase were examined at five depths (0–20, 20–40, 40–60, 60–80, and 80–100 cm) of soil. The pre-irrigation and well water (WW) irrigation plots served as background values and control, respectively. The results showed that SBRW irrigation exerted no negative effects on soil enzymatic activities during 2009–2011 experimental period. Invertase, urease, and neutral phosphatase activities significantly increased in soil irrigated with SBRW compared to that of pre-irrigation and that irrigated with WW. Evidence indicates that SBRW irrigation might strengthen the transformation of nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus and enhance soil nutrients which were required for plant growth. Moreover, catalase activity also significantly rose in soil irrigated with SBRW, suggesting that SBRW irrigation helped remove the adverse effects of hydrogen peroxide. Overall, these results suggest that irrigation with SBRW might be of agricultural interest because of its organic matter concentration and nutrients input, and may be used as a fertilizer source to improve soil quality of irrigated landscapes.

Exclusion and contests over wetlands used for farming in Zimbabwe: a case study of broad-ridge and broad-furrow tillage system on Zungwi Vlei

In Zimbabwe, a broad-ridge and broad-furrow tillage system was promoted by the state, scientists and a nongovernmental organisation for its presumed agronomic and environmental viability and economic returns for small farmers. Zungwi vlei, a wetland of value to the community was transformed from a common use natural resource into a limited access broad-ridge and broad-furrow irrigation landscape that benefited a small number of people. Our study sought to understand conflicts over natural resources access, use and management arising from this land use change. The study adopted mixed methods combining qualitative and quantitative data collection tools. The results indicated the presence of a wide range of internal and external conflicts following the transformation of the landscape. Prior to the transformation, low levels of conflict were noted. We concluded that despite the ability of the broad-ridge and furrow tillage system to boost agricultural productivity per square meter, it triggered considerable resource use conflicts as fewer families directly benefited from the innovation.Key words: Development, vlei, agricultural technology, resources conflict, political ecology, Zimbabwe

Soil quality assessment of urban green space under long-term reclaimed water irrigation.

Reclaimed water is widely used for landscape irrigation with the benefits of saving fresh water and ameliorating soil quality. Field samples were collected from seven parks in Beijing irrigated reclaimed water with different irrigation history in 2011 and 2014 to evaluate the long-term impacts of reclaimed water irrigation on soil quality. Soil quality index method was used to assess the comprehensive effects of reclaimed water irrigation on soil. Results showed that the effects of reclaimed water irrigation on the soil nutrient conditions were limited. Compared with tap water irrigation, soil salinity was significantly higher in 2011, while the difference was insignificant in 2014; soil heavy metals were slightly higher by 0.5-10.6 % in 2011 and 2014, while the differences were insignificant. Under reclaimed water irrigation, soil biological activities were significantly improved in both years. Total nitrogen in reclaimed water had a largest effect on soil quality irrigated reclaimed water. Soil quality irrigated with reclaimed water increased by 2.6 and 6.8 % respectively in 2011 and 2014, while the increases were insignificant. Soil quality of almost half samples was more than or closed to soil quality of natural forest in Beijing. Soil quality was ameliorated at some extent with long-term reclaimed water irrigation.

Cost–benefit analysis of using treated sewage for landscaping in Lahore city, Pakistan

In Pakistan, wastewater production is 4.43 billion m3/year. The best way to deal with this problem is to reuse water in irrigation of crops and gardening, after proper treatment. Wastewater reuse for landscaping is practicable in Lahore because high quality water is not necessary for landscaping purposes. Wastewater was treated at lab scale to reuse for landscaping in Lahore for cost-effective algal treatment to reduce the cost with analysis of Algal species Sirogonium sticticum and Chaetomorpha sutoria effectively removed the phosphates (99.9%), sulfates (99.6%), nitrates (100%), coliforms (99%), and color (92.8%), etc. After the reduction of chemicals, percentages of color (92.8%) and all physical and chemical parameters are within the current law in Pakistan. It was estimated that the total energy cost of landscape irrigation for Race Course park, Lawrence garden, and Gulshan-e-Iqbal park was about USD 86,409.72/year and average cost of fertilizers for landscaping in major parks of Lahore is USD 1,528.49/year. Reusing of this wastewater can save this cost in addition to the saving of almost five cusecs of drinkable fresh water. The cost of collecting wastewater in oxidation ponds is very less because most of the drains pass through these parks, and pumping water through these drains requires very less economic consumption.

Erratum to: Measuring Spatio-temporal Trends in Residential Landscape Irrigation Extent and Rate in Los Angeles, California Using SPOT-5 Satellite Imagery

Erratum to: Measuring Spatio-temporal Trends in Residential Landscape Irrigation Extent and Rate in Los Angeles, California Using SPOT-5 Satellite Imagery

The Palmeral of Elche: an urban irrigation landscape

The palm grove of Elche, in the South-east of Spain, is a creation of the Xe century. It results from the Arab knowledge of creation of oasis. The plantation makes it possible to stabilize the ground, to decrease the evaporation of water (shades), and to protect the plantations from the wind. This improves the effectiveness of the irrigation, necessary for the development of a local agriculture and the setting of a city. This article reconsiders the operation of the palm grove plantation, and particularly of the system of irrigation. It explains the various modifications of the site, of the Christian invasion of the 13th century to the various evolutions of the 20th century, during which the agricultural vocation of the palm plantation tends to disappear. The article finishes on the patrimonial challenges which the protection of the palm plantation raises, in particular since the registration of the site to the world heritage of UNESCO in 2000. (Abstract written by the journal).

The assessment of water use and reuse through reported data: A US case study

Increasing demands for freshwater make it necessary to find innovative ways to extend the life of our water resources, and to manage them in a sustainable way. Indirect water reuse plays a role in meeting freshwater demands but there is limited documentation of it. There is a need to analyze its current status for water resources planning and conservation, and for understanding how it potentially impacts human health. However, the fact that data are archived in discrete uncoordinated databases by different state and federal entities, limits the capacity to complete holistic analysis of critical resources at large watershed scales. Humans alter the water cycle for food production, manufacturing, energy production, provision of potable water and recreation. Ecosystems services are affected at watershed scales but there are also global scale impacts from greenhouse gas emissions enabled by access to cooling, processing and irrigation water. To better document these issues and to demonstrate the utility of such an analysis, we studied the Wabash River Watershed located in the U.S. Midwest. Data for water extraction, use, discharge, and river flow were collected, curated and reorganized in order to characterize the water use and reuse within the basin. Indirect water reuse was estimated by comparing treated wastewater discharges with stream flows at selected points within the watershed. Results show that during the low flow months of July–October, wastewater discharges into the Wabash River basin contributed 82 to 121% of the stream flow, demonstrating that the level of water use and unplanned reuse is significant. These results suggest that intentional water reuse for consumptive purposes such as landscape or agricultural irrigation could have substantial ecological impacts by diminishing stream flow during vulnerable low flow periods.

Decision fusion and non-parametric classifiers for land use mapping using multi-temporal RapidEye data

This study addressed the classification of multi-temporal satellite data from RapidEye by considering different classifier algorithms and decision fusion. Four non-parametric classifier algorithms, decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and multilayer perceptron (MLP), were applied to map crop types in various irrigated landscapes in Central Asia. A novel decision fusion strategy to combine the outputs of the classifiers was proposed. This approach is based on randomly selecting subsets of the input dataset and aggregating the probabilistic outputs of the base classifiers with another meta-classifier. During the decision fusion, the reliability of each base classifier algorithm was considered to exclude less reliable inputs at the class-basis. The spatial and temporal transferability of the classifiers was evaluated using data sets from four different agricultural landscapes with different spatial extents and from different years. A detailed accuracy assessment showed that none of the stand-alone classifiers was the single best performing. Despite the very good performance of the base classifiers, there was still up to 50% disagreement in the maps produced by the two single best classifiers, RF and SVM. The proposed fusion strategy, however, increased overall accuracies up to 6%. In addition, it was less sensitive to reduced training set sizes and produced more realistic land use maps with less speckle. The proposed fusion approach was better transferable to data sets from other years, i.e. resulted in higher accuracies for the investigated classes. The fusion approach is computationally efficient and appears well suited for mapping diverse crop categories based on sensors with a similar high repetition rate and spatial resolution like RapidEye, for instance the upcoming Sentinel-2 mission.

Residential outdoor water use in one East Texas community

Municipalities continue to implement efforts to encourage water conservation among residents. Landscape irrigation has been central to many of those conservation efforts. Reference evapotranspiration data is a tool that can be used in determining the appropriate amount of water to apply to amenity landscapes. Monthly water-use data for 3 years was examined in 1 neighborhood in Huntsville, Texas. The irrigated area for 1,229 residents was calculated and used to determine the depth of monthly irrigation for each residence. Replacement of 100% of local reference evapotranspiration data, minus rainfall, was used as a determinant of how much water to apply to the landscape each month for 3 years. Potential over-irrigation for each month was then compiled. Data expressed that over-irrigation was occurring among 99.51% of residents, of which 12% of these residents over-irrigated by at least 100,000 gallons in at least 1 month during the 36 month study. In 2011, the entire neighborhood of study over-irrigated by 21.2 million gallons. Outdoor water use accounted for 64% of the total water use by households. Average indoor water usage was 4,302 gallons per month. Based on the data overall, greater conservation efforts in landscape irrigation are crucial for Texas residents if water demands are to be met in the 21st century. Citation: Pannkuk TR, Wolfskill LA. 2015. Residential outdoor water use in one East Texas community. Texas Water Journal. 6(1):79-85. Available from: https://doi.org/10.21423/twj.v6i1.7009.

Landscape irrigation management for maintaining an aquifer and economic returns

Expanding irrigated agriculture and dryer climatic conditions has led to large-scale withdrawals of groundwater and the decline in shallow aquifers. Policy makers must wrestle with the challenge of maintaining economic growth while conserving the groundwater resource. A spatially explicit landscape level model analyzes consequences of optimally chosen crop mix patterns on an aquifer and economic returns. The model of the groundwater use incorporates irrigation needs of the crops grown, initial aquifer thickness, hydro-conductivity of the aquifer, and distance to surrounding grid cells. The economic model incorporates the site specific yield, crop mix, and irrigation practice investments to predict economic returns. A tradeoff occurs between the volume of the aquifer and economic returns due to groundwater withdrawal for irrigation, but the farm's ability to grow profitable lower irrigation crops dampens the intensity of this tradeoff. Allowing for multiple unconventional irrigation practices that are yield increasing and water conserving significantly increases the economic returns of a given crop mix while maintaining the aquifer.

Risk analysis of sustainable urban drainage and irrigation

Urbanization, by creating extended impervious areas, to the detriment of vegetated ones, may have an undesirable influence on the water and energy balances of urban environments. The storage and infiltration capacity of the drainage system lessens the negative influence of urbanization, and vegetated areas help to re-establish pre-development environmental conditions. Resource limitation, climate, leading to increasing water scarcity, demographic and socio-institutional shifts promote more integrated water management. Storm-water harvesting for landscape irrigation mitigates possible water restrictions for the urban population in drought scenarios. A new probabilistic model for sustainable rainfall drainage, storage and re-use systems was implemented in this study. Risk analysis of multipurpose storage capacities was generalized by the use of only a few dimensionless parameters and applied to a case study in a Mediterranean-type climate, although the applicability of the model is not restricted to any particular climatic type.

Sustainable graywater reuse for residential landscape irrigation – a critical review

The demand for potable water is rising rapidly due to an ever-increasing population, economic activities, and dwindling water supplies. To provide adequate water supplies in the future, understanding the issues and challenges in the reuse of water and developing appropriate strategies for reuse will be critical. One way to augment water supplies for residential use is to reuse graywater – the wastewater from kitchens, bathrooms, and laundries. In this article, we critically review the evolution of water reuse, the definition of graywater, graywater reuse practices, volumes and flow in different situations, and graywater characteristics. We then examine the issues associated with different graywater treatment methods and how using graywater for irrigation around homes affects soil quality and plant growth. The study concludes that graywater treatment costs, human health risks, and its effect on soil quality are some of the challenges that need to be addressed in the future for widespread and sustainable re...

IRRIGATION GEOTECHNOMORPHOSYSTEM (REVIEWER’S COMMENT)

Reviewer’s comment on the article of Ivanov N.N. Irrigation landscape and factors of its stability

Implementing Smart Controllers on Single-Family Homes with Excessive Irrigation

AbstractIn this study, smart irrigation controllers were targeted toward single-family potable water customers in Orange County, Florida with excessive landscape irrigation patterns. Out of five tr...

Consumptive water use and crop coefficients for warm-season turfgrass species in the Southeastern United States

Increased urban demand for landscape irrigation, as well as interest in promoting water-use efficient species by municipalities, water purveyors, and homeowners associations emphasize the need for comparative data on consumptive water use by warm-season lawn grasses. The objective of this study was to quantify actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and to develop crop coefficients (Kc) for four warm-season turfgrass species, namely ‘Tifway’ bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. x Cynodon transvaalensis Burtt-Davy), ‘Empire’ zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica Steud.), ‘Floratam’ St. Augustinegrass [Stenotaphrum secundatum (Walter) Kuntze], and ‘Argentine’ bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flugge). Crop coefficients were derived by dividing ETa (measured directly from lysimeter weight change over 24 to 72-h periods) by reference evapotranspiration (ETo) calculated from the ASCE–EWRI Standardized Method using onsite weather station data. Data were collected over three seasons from non-stressed, well-watered turf. For 17 of the 30 measurement periods, Kc did not differ among the 4 species, and on 24 of 30 periods zoysiagrass, bermudagrass, and St. Augustinegrass Kc did not differ from one another. A trend toward elevated Kc was observed in bahiagrass in years 2 and 3, particularly during early spring measurement periods. Kc values for all species fluctuated across seasons and years, peaking to ∼0.8 during active growth periods when vapor pressure deficit and solar radiation were greatest, and declining to ∼0.3 in late fall and winter. Root growth differences among the species appeared to have a stronger relationship to ET rates than did shoot growth rate. Results demonstrated that the commonly recommended warm-season turf coefficient of 0.6, while approximating overall average annual ETa, under-predicted ETa during active growth periods and over-predicted ETa during late fall and winter periods, when turf was slowly growing or quiescent. The results indicate seasonal refinement of Kc values may be needed to more effectively meet consumptive water use requirements of warm-season turfgrasses.

Energy-Water Nexus: Potential Energy Savings and Implications for Sustainable Integrated Water Management in Urban Areas from Rainwater Harvesting and Gray-Water Reuse

AbstractSaving water saves energy. Consequently, implementing integrated water management (IWM) measures that reduce potable water consumption, stormwater runoff, and wastewater generation can potentially translate into significant energy savings. In this paper, the energy savings associated with IWM measures of rainwater harvesting and gray-water reuse are estimated, both at national and local utility scales using published data. At the national scale, it is estimated in this paper that up to 3.8 billion kWh and $270 million can potentially be saved annually by replacing landscape irrigation and other outdoor water uses through rainwater harvesting alone, and up to 14 billion kWh and $950 million in combination with gray-water reuse. Similarly, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the local water utility can potentially save up to 31 million kWh and $1.8 million annually. However, annual energy and associated cost savings per household are low at either scale, ranging between 1 and 120 kWh with associated co...

Tools for evaluating and monitoring effectiveness of urban landscape water conservation interventions and programs

Our research objective was to investigate ways to evaluate landscape water use to help cities more effectively direct water conservation programs to locations with capacity to conserve. Research was conducted in connection with a landscape irrigation evaluation delivered through a city-sponsored Water Check Program. Research efforts led to development of several assessment and monitoring tools including: Landscape Irrigation Ratio (LIR), Participant Outcome Evaluation Tool, and Program Evaluation Tool. We utilized these tools to identify locations with capacity to conserve water applied to landscapes, compare water use before and after the water check, and evaluate Water Check Program effectiveness. We found the LIR approach successfully distinguished residential locations efficiently or acceptably using water applied to landscapes from ones with use considered inefficient or excessive. In analyzing change in participants’ water use and eliminating explanations other than the water check, we found factors influencing landscape water use tend to be highly contextualized and the intervention itself needed to be analyzed. The majority of participants who adopted the water check recommendations successfully reduced their landscape water use, but results indicate water check programs can be designed for greater effectiveness by accommodating participants’ differing knowledge and skill levels. We argue that the tools we developed provide the water conservation field with a needed set of common assessment methods. We conclude that landscape water checks have the potential to provide people with the information and problem-solving skills necessary to maintain residential landscapes using appropriate amounts of water if they are well designed, delivered, and monitored.

An Analysis of Grey Water Treatment System in the National University of Malaysia Mosque

This paper is trying to analysis and proposes some design of grey water system in The National University of Malaysia (UKM) mosque in order to save environment. With proper grey water treatment, UKM Mosque will contribute to save water and UKM’s environment. This successful water treatment is also can be an alternative model to apply in another building. This environmental issue, especially water was realized by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) by starting to be a first pioneer in Green & Sustainability Campus in Malaysia. Although UKM is located in water-rich country, still UKM try to commit to save environment as well as manage its environment aspect. The usage of water in UKM itself is categorized in high level. UKM have around 20.000 students and most of them are dwelling in campus. For big campus like this, UKM had one main Mosque which accommodates some daily worship of Moslem as the majority one. For activities like ablution, washing and bathing, UKM Mosque had produce quite big amount of grey water. Grey water itself is residual water that still fresh and can be recycled for some purposes such as landscape irrigation and cleaning service. One alternative method to treats the grey water is by the usage of filter wells.

Water recovery from treated urban wastewater by ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis for landscape irrigation

Techno-economic feasibility of water recovery from secondary effluents of an urban wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) for landscape irrigation was investigated considering two distinctive strategies: ultrafiltration (UF)/chlorination and UF/reverse osmosis (RO). Experimental performance evaluations were conducted separately for UF membranes and for different RO trans-membrane pressures. The quality of the effluent recovered by the UF/RO system was in accordance with the national and international guidelines. The produced reuse water was first class quality according to the national guideline for all parameters except sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), which can be eliminated readily by direct addition of KCl into the recovered water. Estimated field-scale costs indicated that UF/RO yielded a total cost of US$12,500,000–13,600,000 with annual operating cost being US$482,000–533,000 at 5–20 bar. The economic estimations guaranteed reimbursement with US$7,600,000–7,400,000 net present value, 0.22–0.39 year payback time, US$0.44–0.49/m3 treatment cost, and a benefit/cost ratio of 0.57.

Septic Systems as a ‘Green’ Technology

ity. On-site treatment systems are now an integral part of our wastewater infrastructure and are collectively referred to as decentralized wastewater systems. Decentralized wastewater technology and management refers to wastewater treatment and dispersal systems from the individual on-site treatment system (septic systems) to small community collection and treatment systems (cluster systems) and includes the process involved in siting, installing, operating and maintaining the systems. These systems rely upon land application by surface or subsurface dispersal and proper treatment of the wastewater. They allow the treated wastewater to re-enter the hydrologic cycle close to where the potable water was removed. Often, as in the case of an individual system, this is less than a few hundred feet. They are considered to be non-point source discharges by federal and state standards. Often septic systems are portrayed in a negative light but they are now an integral part of our wastewater infrastructure. Photo by David Lindbo and courtesy of Soil Science @ NC State's Flickr photostream.