Desalination Treatment of Irrigation Water

Dear Colleagues,

Irrigation accounts for about 70% of global anthropogenic water usage. Global agricultural land is about 5 billion ha. About 20% of arable land is irrigated. About 30% of irrigated land is irrigated with saline water (>60 million ha). The amount of land affected by saline irrigation is increasing by about 4 million ha a^-1. Soil salinization, associated with saline irrigation, results in the abandonment of about 20,000 ha a^-1. Irrigated land accounts for 40% of global food production. Irrigated water demand is <5,000 m³ ha^-1 a^-1 for most greenhouses, 1000–10,000 m³ ha^-1 a^-1 for most arable crops, and >50,000 m³ ha^-1 a^-1 for some rice crops. Global food demand is expected to rise by between 60% and 100% by 2050, to feed 9.1 billion people. The majority of the future increase in food production, required to meet this demand, will be confined to areas which are currently irrigated with saline water or which will become newly irrigated with saline water. The use of saline irrigation water, however, adversely affects crop yields, crop diversity, crop value, soil quality, local groundwater quality, local riparian systems, local groundwater levels, and land use. Desalination, or partial desalination, or freshwater dilution, or additional processing, or treatment, of this saline irrigation water, has the potential to substantially increase crop yields, crop varieties, and crop quality and value while improving soil quality, groundwater quality, and riparian water quality and reducing water demand (m³ ha^-1). This SI addresses existing, emerging, and new desalination technologies, irrigation practices, reuse of overland flow (or groundwater) for irrigation, plant varieties, agricultural practices, soil management, water management, energy management, desalination economics, and associated policies required to meet, or assist in meeting, this global challenge.

Dr. David D. J. Antia
Dr. Chicgoua Noubactep
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.