Global use of wastewater to irrigate agriculture at least 50 percent greater than thought. Phys.org, July 2017.
The use of untreated wastewater from cities to irrigate crops downstream is 50 percent more widespread than previously thought, according to a new study published this week in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
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The study relies on advanced modeling methods to provide the first truly comprehensive estimate of the global extent to which farmers use urban wastewater on irrigated cropland. Researchers analyzed data with geographic information systems (GIS) rather than depending on case study results, as in previous studies.
The researchers also assessed for the first time ‘indirect reuse’, which occurs when wastewater gets diluted but still remains a dominant component of surface water flows. Such situations account for the majority of agricultural water reuse worldwide, but have been difficult to quantify on a global level due to different views of what constitutes diluted wastewater versus polluted water.
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