Economic Feasibility of Irrigated Agricultural Land Use Buffers to Reduce Groundwater Nitrate in Rural Drinking Water Sources

Abstract

Agricultural irrigation leachate is often the largest source for aquifer recharge in semi-arid groundwater basins, but contamination from fertilizers and other agro-chemicals may degrade the quality of groundwater. Affected communities are frequently economically disadvantaged, and water supply alternatives may be too costly. This study aimed to demonstrate that, when addressing these issues, environmental sustainability and market profitability are not incompatible. We investigated the viability of two low impact crops, alfalfa and vineyards, and new recharge basins as an alternative land use in recharge buffer zones around affected communities using an integrated hydrologic, socio-geographic, and economic analysis. In the southern Central Valley, California, study area, alfalfa and vineyards currently constitute 30% of all buffer zone cropland. Economic analyses of alternative land use scenarios indicate a wide range of revenue outcomes. Sector output gains and potential cost saving through land use conversion and resulting flood control result in gains of at least $2.3 billion, as compared to costs of $0.3 to $0.7 billion for treatment options over a 20 year period. Buffer zones would maintain the economic integrity of the region and concur with prevailing OPEN ACCESSWater 2015, 7 13 policy options. Thus, managed agricultural recharge buffer zones are a potentially attractive option for communities facing financial constraint and needing to diversify their portfolio of policy and infrastructure approaches to meet drinking water quality objectives.

Evaluation of groundwater quality in a rural community in North Central of Nigeria

“…Water is essential for supporting livelihoods, safeguarding public health, providing food security, ensuring environmental sustainability, promoting industrial and economic development, improving living standards, and achieving sustainable development (Dinka et al, 2015;Falkenmark, 2015;Gwenzi et al, 2015;Huang et al, 2014;Kumar et al, 2015;Mayzelle et al, 2015;Sobowale et al, 2015). It is estimated that about 3.4 billion people in developing countries are highly vulnerable to water insecurity which developed countries have overcomed through massive technological, management investments as reported by Vorosmarty et al (2010) as well as infrastructural investments.…”

Evaluating Groundwater Management Sustainability under Limited Data Availability in Semiarid Zones

“…This contamination is caused mainly by the excessive fertilization of crops and the inappropriate management of waste from livestock farms. It is particularly problematic in areas with low rainfall, as is the case with the semiarid areas examined in this paper [28]. This problem is widespread in many regions and countries.…”

sUAS Remote Sensing of Vineyard Evapotranspiration Quantifies Spatiotemporal Uncertainty in Satellite-Borne ET Estimates

“…Furthermore, other forms of agriculture have generated excess nitrogen throughout the region [57,58], which can lead to myriad impacts on environmental [59] and agroeconomic systems [60], and ultimately human well-being. Remedies in this region include enhancing viticulture in active recharge zones around groundwater dependent communities [61], constructing distributed desalination systems for brackish irrigation return water [62], incorporating wildlife friendly farming practices [63], and integrated management of forests and watersheds for clean water supply [64]. Despite current challenges in the operational deployment of sUAS [65] for environmental management, sUAS remote sensing can provide critical data to inform such land use management decisions beyond better estimates of ET, including biomass and carbon quantification for regenerative agriculture [66].…”