Water savings aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be
Published on by Markus Pahlow, University of Canterbury - Senior Lecturer
This study adds to known information:
By Jeff Smith, published 5 Dec 2013 on IWMI news:
"A newly published study of rice-wheat agriculture in Pakistan shows that, while many farmers adopt water conservation technologies such as zero tillage, water use has actually risen, contributing to groundwater depletion."...
Full article and link to publication of Ahmad et al. (in press):
http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/2013/12/water-savings-arent-always-what-theyre-cracked-up-to-be/
3 Answers
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yes, if we try putting efforts in water conservation, results are so obvious to see. But the hard part is to break the mind sets of farmers. To make them understand that new water conservation technologies or say something new technology is not going to harm their production. I am working with farming community since ages for now and still i face many problem when it comes to make them adopt some new thing. Good share mark.
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thanks for sharing Markus.
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Markus, Unfortunately unless desalination techniques can be improved upon, our planet is facing a slow death. It's something that goes along with a growing population and limited resources. There might be a way to "super charge" current R.O. systems. And that would be by having membranes in an extreme vacuum of 29 hg's or more. This way, water would have little if any adhesion or cohesion. This would also mean that the need for pumps that can generate 40 to 80 bars of pressure would no longer be needed. If vacuum is generated by using water (pumping it out) to create the vacuum, it could possibly drop the cost of desalination through the bottom. I guess between the need for fresh water, irrigable land and rising sea levels, about the only thing that can help would be something that seems miraculous. So I guess with me, if what this world needs is a minor miracle, why not try for one ? p.s. water can be passed through an extreme vacuum by having the discharge (centrifugal) pump drawing the water through on both the brine and fresh water sides. After all, oil is pumped/moved across continents, the same can be done with water.