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Books > Professional & Technical > Agriculture & farming > Agricultural engineering & machinery
Water protection, food production and ecosystem health are
worldwide issues. Changes in the global water cycle are affecting
human wellbeing in many places, while widespread land and ecosystem
degradation, driven by poor agricultural practices, is seriously
limiting food production. Understanding the links between
ecosystems, water, and food production is important to the health
of all three, and sustainably managing these connections is
becoming increasingly necessary. This book shows how sustainable
ecosystems, especially agroecosystems, are essential for water
management and food production.
Of all the confrontations man has engineered with nature,
irrigation systems have had the most widespread and far-reaching
impact on the natural environment. Over a quarter of a billion
hectares of the planet are irrigated and entire countries depend on
irrigation for their survival and existence. Considering the
importance of irrigation schemes, it is unfortunate that until
recently the technology and principles of design applied to their
construction has hardly changed in 4,000 years. Modern thinking on
irrigation engineering has benefited from a cross-fertilization of
ideas from many other fields including social sciences, control
theory, political economics and agriculture. However, these
influences have been largely ignored by irrigation engineers.
Drawing on almost 40 years of experience of irrigation in the
developing world, Laycock introduces new ideas on the design of
irrigation systems and combines important issues from the
disciplines of social conflict, management, and political thinking.
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Conserving Land, Protecting Water
(Hardcover)
Deborah Bossio; Contributions by Frits Penning De Vries; Edited by Kim Geheb; Contributions by Line Gordon, Antonio Trabucco, …
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The degradation of land and water resources resulting primarily
from agricultural activities has had enormous impact on human
society. In order to alleviate this problem, an advanced
understanding of the state of our resources and the process of
degradation is needed. "Conserving Land, Protecting Water" includes
an overview of existing literature focusing on global patterns of
land and water degradation and discussions of new insights drawn
from successful case studies on reversing soil and water
degradation and their impact on food and environmental security.
As global pressure on water resources intensifies, it is essential
that scientists understand the role that water plays in the
development of crops and how such knowledge can be applied to
improve water productivity. Linking crop physiology, agronomy and
irrigation practices, this book focuses on eleven key fruit crops
upon which millions of people in the tropics and subtropics depend
for their livelihoods (avocado, cashew, Citrus spp., date palm,
lychee, macadamia, mango, olive, papaya, passion fruit and
pineapple). Each chapter reviews international irrigation research
on an individual fruit crop, identifying opportunities for
improving the effectiveness of water allocation and encouraging
readers to link scientific knowledge with practical applications.
Clearly written and well illustrated, this is an ideal resource for
engineers, agronomists and researchers concerned with how the
productivity of irrigated agriculture can be improved, in the
context of climate change, and the need for growers to demonstrate
good irrigation practices.
Plant phenotyping is rapidly developing technology that involves
the quantitative analysis of structural and functional plant
traits. It is widely recognised that phenotyping needs to match
similar advances in genetics if it is to not create a bottleneck in
plant breeding. Advances in plant phenotyping for more sustainable
crop production reviews the wealth of research on advances in plant
phenotyping to meet this challenge, including new technologies such
as optical and thermographic sensors, as well as alternative
carrier systems such as field robots and unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs). The book details the use of plant phenotyping to analyse
traits such as crop root functionality, yield performance and
disease resistance. Edited by a world-renowned researcher in plant
science, Advances in plant phenotyping for more sustainable crop
production will be a standard reference for university and other
researchers in plant science, as well as those in computing and
engineering science with a research focus on computer vision, data
mining and image-based plant phenotyping. The book will also be a
key resource for plant breeders, government and private agencies
involved in advocating for a more sustainable agriculture,
agricultural engineers, as well as suppliers of agricultural
technology.
This book is based on a workshop held in Zimbabwe, May 1999,
organized by the Department of Research and Specialist Services
(Zimbabwe) and the International Board for Soil Research and
Management (IBSRAM). Reviewing the current state of knowledge on
and the practical aspects of the management of Vertisols in Africa,
this book also includes comparative chapters covering other parts
of the world, such as India, Australia and Texas (USA).
"Quality Control for Foods and Agricultural Products" is a single, complete, and practical reference to the wide variety of techniques for quality control in the production of food products. The book may also serve as a guidebook to other industries that are initiating or reviewing their quality control procedures. This title provides an overview of the tools available for quality control in the food industry. Among the quality control measures discused are practical methodology, sampling methods, measurement devices, sensors, computer analysis, data interpretation, reference materials, and standardization. "Quality Control for Foods and Agricultural Products" allows the reader to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages associated with a particular quality control method. Armed with this knowledge, the best possible quality control method may be chosen for a given product.
Keep your lawn and garden lush without wasting resources by
capturing and recycling the greywater that drains from your sink,
shower, and washing machine. This accessible and detailed guide
walks you through each step of planning for and installing a
variety of greywater systems, including laundry-to-landscape and
branched drain gravity-fed. After identifying greywater sources in
your home and estimating flow rate, you'll learn to pinpoint where
to redirect the wastewater for the greatest benefit. No matter
which system you decide to build, doing so is quick and inexpensive
and uses only basic tools and materials readily available at home
supply stores.
Innovation has moved through a range of revolutionary epochs, but
there is no clear picture of how, or even if, innovation can be
managed. This book explores the models, methods and metrics of
innovation analysis in the context of a single center: the Global
Oilseeds Complex centred in Saskatoon, Canada. It is a single,
coherent volume that outlines the theory and practices related to
innovation, offering a critical assessment of the strengths and
weaknesses of the different approaches, backed up with empirical
evidence.
In this book, Leslie Small and Ian Carruthers examine in detail the
potentials and limitations of user fees for financing irrigation
operation and maintenance. Both authors have extensive field
experience in irrigation in developing countries and have combined
this experience with simple concepts of economics to examine
possible institutional and financial reforms which would not simply
ask farmers to pay for an inadequate irrigation service, but would
create the potential for significant improvements in the quality of
the service provided. The proposed elements of any such reform are
discussed in depth - a system of user fees covering the recurrent
costs of irrigation; a financially autonomous irrigation agency
that can retain and use the fees to operate and maintain the
irrigation facilities; and a macro policy environment that is not
unduly skewed against the agricultural sector. Written in a style
intended to convey economic perspectives and insights to
non-economists, this book will be essential reading for all those
concerned with the financing and performance of irrigation in
developing countries.
This textbook provides a comprehensive treatment of irrigation
engineering for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. It
does not require a background in calculus, hydrology, or
hydraulics, offering a one-stop overview of the entire field of
study. It includes everything a student of irrigation engineering
needs to know: concepts of climate, soils, crops, water quality,
hydrology, and hydraulics, as well as their application to design
and environmental management. To demonstrate the practical
applications of the theories discussed, there are over 300 worked
examples and end-of chapter exercises. The exercises allow readers
to solve real-world problems and apply the information they've
learned to a diverse range of scenarios. To further prepare
students for their future careers, each chapter includes many
illustrative diagrams and tables containing data to help design
irrigation systems. For instructors' use when planning and
teaching, a solutions manual can be found online alongside a suite
of PowerPoint lecture slides.
Micro Irrigation Management: Technological Advances and Their
Applications, the fifth book in the Innovations and Challenges in
Micro Irrigation book series, is a valuable reference volume on
micro irrigation and water management for professional training
institutes, technical agricultural centers, irrigation centers,
agricultural extension service, and other agencies who work with
micro irrigation programs. With an international focus, this new
book focuses on applications of solar energy in micro irrigation
and other important technological advances. It includes case
studies and illustrative examples on drip irrigation design.
This new volume in the Innovations and Challenges in Micro
Irrigation series covers an array of technologies to estimate
evapotranspiration and to evaluate parameters that are needed in
the management of micro irrigation, with worldwide applicability to
irrigation management in agriculture. Topics include recent
evapotranspiration research, performance evaluation of filters and
emitters, evaluation of fertigation and ground water with treated
wastewater effluent, performance of pulse drip irrigated potato
under organic agriculture practices in sandy soils, impact of
polyethylene mulch on micro irrigated cabbage, and tree injection
irrigation.
This new book, the fourth volume in the Innovations and Challenges
in Micro Irrigation book series, examines the potential of solar
energy and other emerging energy technologies in micro irrigation
to create sustainable energy sources. The authors discuss a variety
of innovative micro irrigation system designs, with a special focus
on solar energy and photovoltaic (PV) energy.
This report examines Viet Nam's tech-based startups in two sectors:
agriculture and health. It assesses the challenges for creating a
more enabling ecosystem to scale up startups in these sectors and
makes recommendations to overcome them. Technology-based startup
enterprises are an increasingly important part of the business
landscape in Asia and the Pacific. By applying innovative
technologies to create new products and services, they can make a
significant contribution to economic development while generating
social and environmental benefits. However, to survive and then
thrive, tech startups require an enabling ecosystem that includes
supportive government policy, adequate access to capital, skilled
personnel, and quality digital infrastructure. This is the third
country report in the series ""Ecosystems for Technology Startups
in Asia and the Pacific.
Tea is big business. After water, tea is believed to be the most
widely consumed beverage in the world. And yet, as productivity
increases, the real price of tea declines while labour costs
continue to rise. Tea remains a labour intensive industry. With a
distinguished career spanning over 50 years and rich experience in
diverse crops, Mike Carr is eminently qualified to indulge in an
intelligent discourse on tea agronomy. In addition to a
comprehensive review of the principal tea growing regions worldwide
in terms of structure, productivity and principal constraints, he
has attempted to question and seeks to find the associated
experimental evidence needed to support current and future crop
management practices. The book will assist all those involved in
the tea industry to become creative thinkers and to question
accepted practices. International in content, it will appeal to
practitioners and students from tea growing countries worldwide.
This Atlas is composed of Hazards-Volume I and Exposures,
Vulnerabilities, and Risks-Volume II containing spatial information
and thematic maps for assessing development in the agriculture and
water sectors. This two-volume atlas is intended to support the
formulation of co-beneficial options for climate change adaptation
and disaster risk reduction and management in Bangladesh.
This Atlas is composed of Hazards-Volume I and Exposures,
Vulnerabilities, and Risks-Volume II containing spatial information
and thematic maps for assessing development in the agriculture and
water sectors. This two-volume atlas is intended to support the
formulation of co-beneficial options for climate change adaptation
and disaster risk reduction and management in Bangladesh.
The study examined women's roles and gender gaps in land operation
and farming, labor arrangements in agriculture and water
management, and feminization of agriculture in the Lower Vaksh
River Basin in Tajikistan. The study was part of the Strengthening
Gender-Inclusive Growth in Central and West Asia project supported
by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The study findings will
improve understanding of the situation so as to inform the ADB
grant-financed project in modernizing irrigation and drainage
systems in the Lower Vaksh River Basin. It reinforces the need for
gender inclusiveness in planning and designing irrigation and
drainage projects, ensuring benefits for all.
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