The Borlaug Blog

I learned so much about water management especially in water scarce areas- from Akissa Bahri, an amazing Tunisian who has served with the African Development Bank, the FAO, IWMI, and the Global Partnership among many others.  Here is her very concise chart on the advantages of the reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural purposes. 

If all of this is so, why doesn’t the world use this huge potential benefit to alleviate current water stress, plus nutrient and energy shortages?  Well, the answer is – it does so, increasingly.  As much as 10% of global irrigated crops are produced with wastewater.

Norman Borlaug recognized the importance of irrigation during the Green Revolution, during his work in both Mexico and India. During his Nobel Laureate speech Borlaug said, “It is estimated that a total of seventy thousand private tube-wells were sunk during the 1969-1970 crop season in India, which brings about 1.4 million hectares of additional land under controlled irrigation, thereby greatly expanding the food production potential.” Irrigation was an essential part of Dr. Borlaug’s work and will continue to play a large role in the future of agriculture, and wastewater is the future of irrigation.

 Its good news to increase food production, but more investment is needed in treating the water before use, which is much cheaper in terms of electricity than desalination.  The USA and Australia clean the water and restore groundwater reserves.

Exciting science is being applied in wider and wider circles as we expand the frontiers of what we can do with wastewater – once we stop wasting it--and take a look at whether our current laws and practices encourage or discourage this move toward greater sustainability.

 Here are three moving off the drawing board into use:

• Microbial electrochemical cells that convert organic wastes into renewable hydrogen gas, electrical power, or hydrogen peroxide.
•  Photosynthetic microorganisms that can capture sunlight and CO2 to produce feedstock for renewable forms of liquid fuels and chemicals.

• Applied Anammox technology for efficient nitrogen removal in the treatment of municipal wastewater energy positive makes municipal wastewater treatment simpler and significantly more sustainable, using 75% less land area, 30% less energy use, and 25% less capital cost.  This is now being used in Portugal, South Africa, the UK and the Netherlands.