**Desalination Applications**

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

/d desalination plant was used,

**Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields:**

**Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields:** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.76847

Water scarcity is a global problem, motivating growth and development of new technologies for water treatment, reuse and desalination. For many arid regions in Mexico, especially in the northwest, agriculture is an important economic activity. The Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico, faces problems related to aquifer overexploitation and saline intrusion, which have increased salt concentration in well water to 2000–9000 mg/L total dissolved solids (TDS) and led to soil salinization and low crop yields. This work evaluates the

consisting of 12 SWC4B-MAX membrane modules, with 98% rejection and 75% recovery. Two crops were irrigated with control (4000 mg/L) and desalinated water (200 mg/L). Sorghum (*Sorghum*) had yields of 7.9 and 8.8 ton/ha, whereas tomatillo (*Physalis philadelphica*) had yields of 30.82 and 35.88 ton/ha, respectively. Evidently, the desalination

Constant population growth, soil erosion, scarcity and excessive consumption of fresh water represent the most important reasons for the constant development and innovation of new technologies to provide water in large quantities and good quality [1]. Water scarcity exists

> © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Success Cases in Mexico**

**Success Cases in Mexico**

Germán Eduardo Dévora-Isiordia, María del Rosario Martínez-Macías,

Germán Eduardo Dévora-Isiordia, María del Rosario Martínez-Macías,

and Gustavo Adolfo Fimbres-Weihs

Ma. Araceli Correa-Murrieta, Jesús Álvarez-Sánchez and

Gustavo Adolfo Fimbres-Weihs

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76847

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Ma. Araceli Correa-Murrieta, Jesús Álvarez-Sánchez,

effect of TDS in irrigation water on crop yield. A 150 m<sup>3</sup>

**Keywords:** reverse osmosis, irrigation, crop yields, desalination

process influences agricultural yields.

#### **Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields: Success Cases in Mexico Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields: Success Cases in Mexico**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.76847

Germán Eduardo Dévora-Isiordia, María del Rosario Martínez-Macías, Ma. Araceli Correa-Murrieta, Jesús Álvarez-Sánchez and Gustavo Adolfo Fimbres-Weihs Germán Eduardo Dévora-Isiordia, María del Rosario Martínez-Macías, Ma. Araceli Correa-Murrieta, Jesús Álvarez-Sánchez, and Gustavo Adolfo Fimbres-Weihs Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76847

#### **Abstract**

Water scarcity is a global problem, motivating growth and development of new technologies for water treatment, reuse and desalination. For many arid regions in Mexico, especially in the northwest, agriculture is an important economic activity. The Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico, faces problems related to aquifer overexploitation and saline intrusion, which have increased salt concentration in well water to 2000–9000 mg/L total dissolved solids (TDS) and led to soil salinization and low crop yields. This work evaluates the effect of TDS in irrigation water on crop yield. A 150 m<sup>3</sup> /d desalination plant was used, consisting of 12 SWC4B-MAX membrane modules, with 98% rejection and 75% recovery. Two crops were irrigated with control (4000 mg/L) and desalinated water (200 mg/L). Sorghum (*Sorghum*) had yields of 7.9 and 8.8 ton/ha, whereas tomatillo (*Physalis philadelphica*) had yields of 30.82 and 35.88 ton/ha, respectively. Evidently, the desalination process influences agricultural yields.

**Keywords:** reverse osmosis, irrigation, crop yields, desalination

#### **1. Introduction**

Constant population growth, soil erosion, scarcity and excessive consumption of fresh water represent the most important reasons for the constant development and innovation of new technologies to provide water in large quantities and good quality [1]. Water scarcity exists

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

when demand exceeds freshwater supply in a given area [2]. The three main features that characterize water scarcity are: the physical shortage of available water to meet demand; the level of infrastructure development that controls storage, distribution and access; and the institutional capacity to provide the required water services [3]. In Mexico, there is a chronic shortage of water, especially in the northern part of the country, where precipitation volumes are notably lower than the potential evapotranspiration [4].

**2. Methodology**

A 150 m<sup>3</sup>

**2.1. Location of the study area**

and maintenance were considered.

**2.3. Brackish well pump**

**Figure 1.** Study area, Sonora, Mexico.

**2.2. Configuration of the desalinization process**

from the well by a 3 hp triphasic pump (Grundfos).

SWC4 membrane modules with a permeate flow rate of 27.3 m<sup>3</sup>

wound configuration, polyamide composite membrane and 440 ft<sup>2</sup>

This study took place near Cd. Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, in field 1814 (**Figure 1**), located in

The plant uses a 40 hp high pressure pump (Grundfos). The pressure levels in the membrane modules and cartridge filters, as well as the process flow rates, were all monitored. In determining the water production cost of the RO process, the costs of electricity, labor, chemicals

The water supplied to the desalination process was sourced from a brackish well adjacent to the study area, with an average salinity of 4000 mg/L TDS. The brackish water was pumped

/d capacity RO desalination plant was used, consisting of 12 Hydranautics 8 × 40″

Using Desalination to Improve Agricultural Yields: Success Cases in Mexico

/d, 99.8% salt rejection, spiral

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76847

5

active membrane area.

the Yaqui Valley, with geographic coordinates 27° 11′ 21.7″ N, 109° 52′ 15.6″ W [8].

Considering that 97% of the water available on Earth has a salinity level exceeding 35 g/L, the desalination process is a viable option in the short term, which has had a significant growth in the recent past [2]. At the beginning of the modern development of desalination, before the 1970s, desalination methods consisted of thermal processes and their operation was such that they evaporated the fluid and collected the condensate. Known thermal processes include thermal vapor compression (TVC), multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) [5]. However, because evaporation processes require large amounts of energy for their operation, the use of semi-permeable membranes through reverse osmosis (RO) has become the main technology in use, accounting for 65% of the installed capacity of desalination plants. This installed RO capacity grows at a rate of 4 million m<sup>3</sup> /d each year [4].

The use of desalination to produce clean water as well as industrial and agricultural water has gained popularity among the sectors that require this resource [3]. The agricultural sector is the most important consumer of water resources, so RO desalination technology for crop irrigation has been successfully implemented in several countries, mainly in arid regions such as Israel [6] and Spain, where more desalinated water is currently provided for agricultural use than for domestic use [7, 8]. Likewise, several nations such as China, Chile and Australia offer specialized advice on the different techniques and technologies of desalination focused on agricultural crops [1], making the RO process the most used to tackle water scarcity in that sector [1, 2]. Therefore, desalination technologies enable the possibility to make optimal use of hydrological resources, both of the product (permeate) water and the retentate (brine).

The characteristics of irrigation water are directly linked to the quality of the crops harvested, as high salinity is intolerable for most crops established for food production. The agricultural sector benefits from the supply of higher volumes of better quality water [7]. However, the volume of global desalinated water currently accounts for only 1% of the world's supply. Of this value, only 2% of desalinated water is used for agricultural purposes [9, 10].

The state of Sonora, located in northwestern Mexico, ranks second in irrigation crops in the country. About 95% of the state is considered semi-arid and is characterized by a climate of high temperatures and low rainfall per year. Those conditions, combined with the overexploitation and lack of recharge into aquifers, have led to a decrease in the levels of available water [3], especially for agriculture. Several regions in the state present high salinity in well water, ranging from 2000 to 9000 mg/L of total dissolved solids (TDS), which are attributed to saline intrusion effects, causing soil salinization and decreasing the yields of vegetable and grain crops [8]. In this context, the objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of two typical crops (Sorghum and Tomatillo) under brackish water irrigation, by comparing their yield using water with different salinity levels, in order to determine the salinity-yield effect.
