Humans generate millions of tons of waste every day. This waste is rich in water, nutrients, energy and organic compounds. Yet waste is not being managed in a way that permits us to derive value from its reuse, whilst millions of farmers struggle with depleted soils and lack of water. This book shows how resource recovery and reuse (RRR) could create livelihoods, enhance food security, support green economies, reduce waste and contribute to cost recovery in the sanitation chain.

While many RRR projects depend on subsidies and hardly survive their pilot phase, hopeful signs of viable approaches to RRR are emerging around the globe including low-and middle-income countries. Many of these new commercial pathways are being charted in the informal sector, delivering innovative approaches for cost-recovery. These enterprises or projects are tapping into entrepreneurial initiatives and public-private partnerships, leveraging private capital to help realize commercial and/or social value, shifting the focus from treatment for waste disposal to treatment of waste as a valuable resource for safe reuse.

The book provides a compendium of these success stories of resource recovery and reuse. It presents for energy, nutrient and water recovery innovative business models based on approximately 70 empirical cases from around the world, each described and evaluated in a systematic way. The focus is on municipal or agro-industrial waste and models with potential for large-scale out- and up-scaling. For each model, safety concerns and risk mitigation measures are highlighted. This is the first book on business models and their enabling environment for the reuse-oriented sanitation sector.

Irrigation came to the arid West in a wave of optimism about the power of water to make the desert bloom. Mark Fiege's fascinating and innovative study of irrigation in southern Idaho's Snake River valley describes a complex interplay of human and natural systems. Using vast quantities of labor, irrigators built dams, excavated canals, laid out farms, and brought millions of acres into cultivation. But at each step, nature rebounded and compromised the intended agricultural order. The result was a new and richly textured landscape made of layer upon layer of technology and intractable natural forces-one that engineers and farmers did not control with the precision they had anticipated. Irrigated Eden vividly portrays how human actions inadvertently helped to create a strange and sometimes baffling ecology. Winner of the Idaho Library Association Book Award, 1999 Winner of the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award, Forest History Society, 1999-2000

The use of urban wastewater in agriculture is receiving renewed attention, with the increasing scarcity of fresh water resources in many arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Wastewater is a low-cost alternative to conventional irrigation water, although it may carry health and environmental risks.This book critically reviews experience worldwide of these issues. Emphasis is placed on untreated wastewater use by means of field-based case studies from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. It brings together a range of perspectives including economic, health, agronomic, environmental, institutional, and policy dimensions.

Beyond providing a thorough introduction to the field of agricultural mechanics, the Precision Exams Edition of this trusted text aligns to Precision Exams' Agricultural Systems Technology, Level 1 exam. The text covers fundamental mechanical and engineering theory, common tools and materials, and practical applications including shop orientation and procedures, woodworking and metalworking, tool fitting, project planning, cutting and welding, paints and paint application, power mechanics, electrical wiring, plumbing, hydraulics, concrete and masonry, and agricultural structures. Safety is also emphasized strongly throughout the text, and a dedicated unit introduces students to diverse career opportunities. The current edition also features new information on the National FFA Organization and SAEs, first aid, and engine powered equipment, as well as new activities and lab exercises.

Initially associated with hi-tech irrigated agriculture, drip irrigation is now being used by a much wider range of farmers in emerging and developing countries. This book documents the enthusiasm, spread and use of drip irrigation systems by smallholders but also some disappointments and disillusion faced in the global South. It explores and explains under which conditions it works, for whom and with what effects. The book deals with drip irrigation 'behind the scenes', showcasing what largely remain 'untold stories'. Most research on drip irrigation use plot-level studies to demonstrate the technology's ability to save water or improve efficiencies and use a narrow and rather prescriptive engineering or economic language. They tend to be grounded in a firm belief in the technology and focus on the identification of ways to improve or better realize its potential. The technology also figures prominently in poverty alleviation or agricultural modernization narratives, figuring as a tool to help smallholders become more innovative, entrepreneurial and business minded. Instead of focusing on its potential, this book looks at drip irrigation-in-use, making sense of what it does from the perspectives of the farmers who use it, and of the development workers and agencies, policymakers, private companies, local craftsmen, engineers, extension agents or researchers who engage with it for a diversity of reasons and to realize a multiplicity of objectives. While anchored in a sound engineering understanding of the design and operating principles of the technology, the book extends the analysis beyond engineering and hydraulics to understand drip irrigation as a sociotechnical phenomenon that not only changes the way water is supplied to crops but also transforms agricultural farming systems and even how society is organized. The book provides field evidence from a diversity of interdisciplinary case studies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America, and South Asia, thus revealing some of the untold stories of drip irrigation.

This book focuses on light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, mainly for the commercial production of horticultural crops in plant factories and greenhouses with controlled environments, giving special attention to: 1) plant growth and development as affected by the light environment; and 2) business and technological opportunities and challenges with regard to LEDs. The book contains more than 30 chapters grouped into seven parts: 1) overview of controlled-environment agriculture and its significance; 2) the effects of ambient light on plant growth and development; 3) optical and physiological characteristics of plant leaves and canopies; 4) greenhouse crop production with supplemental LED lighting; 5) effects of light quality on plant physiology and morphology; 6) current status of commercial plant factories under LED lighting; and 7) basics of LEDs and LED lighting for plant cultivation. LED lighting for urban agriculture in the forthcoming decades will not be just an advanced form of current urban agriculture. It will be largely based on two fields: One is a new paradigm and rapidly advancing concepts, global technologies for LEDs, information and communication technology, renewable energy, and related expertise and their methodologies; the other is basic science and technology that should not change for the next several decades. Consideration should be given now to future urban agriculture based on those two fields. The tremendous potentials of LED lighting for urban agriculture are stimulating many people in various fields including researchers, businesspeople, policy makers, educators, students, community developers, architects, designers, and entrepreneurs. Readers of this book will understand the principle, concept, design, operation, social roles, pros and cons, costs and benefits of LED lighting for urban agriculture, and its possibilities and challenges for solving local as well as global agricultural, environmental, and social issues.

Irrigation has been used for thousands of years to maximize the performance, efficiency and profitability of crops and it is a science that is constantly evolving. This potential for improved crop yields has never been more important as population levels and demand for food continue to grow. Recognising the need for a coherent and accessible review of international irrigation research, this book examines the factors influencing water productivity in individual crops. It focuses on nine key plantation/industrial crops on which millions of people in the tropics and subtropics depend for their livelihoods (banana, cocoa, coconut, coffee, oil palm, rubber, sisal, sugar cane and tea). Linking crop physiology, agronomy and irrigation practices, this is a valuable resource for planners, irrigation engineers, agronomists and producers concerned with the international need to improve water productivity in agriculture in the face of increased pressure on water resources.

Egyptian agriculture is uniquely dependent on water, with over 95 per cent of agricultural production originating from land irrigated by the Nile. The improvement of irrigation systems and better control over water by farmers is therefore crucial to the drive to raise productivity in the current ocntext of scarce water resources, rich but underutilized land and changes in the institutional environment of the economy after "liberalization." This text evaluates the ambitious state-of-the-art Irrigation Improvement Project (IIP) and should be of interest to all those concerned with issues of water and development in the Middle East.

A Gottingen thesis studying Iron Age sickles and scythes and other reaping equipment from Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Catalogue includes 405 examples. To determine the precise function of various tools the author made replicas and tried them out. Discussion shows how changing tool types reflect changing farming patterns. 246S 583, 1993)

Ransomes of Ipswich was at the forefront of the agricultural engineering and grass-cutting industries in Britain. In the course of their 200-year history they were responsible for many innovations including the self-sharpening ploughshare and the world's first self-moving agricultural machine. They manufactured the world's first lawn mower and were renowned for steam engines and threshers. They built tractors and trolleybuses, combines and reach trucks; they provided Britain's tillage implements and they exported throughout the world. Using over 300 illustrations, a quarter in colour, this book provides a vivid picture of Ransomes and in particular their contribution to 20th-century farm machinery. The text is authoritative, full of detail and useful information for a wide range of enthusiasts, whether their interests are match ploughing, MG tractors, grass-maintenance machinery or combines.

With a roster of international contributors, this volume offers an abundance of solutions to address agricultural water management challenges in today's water-scarce areas of the world. The authors present studies on farmer-friendly irrigation scheduling methods, model-based analysis of crop water requirements, ways to optimize surface irrigation systems, and hydraulic design and management of surface water systems. The book goes on to highlight ways to improve soil properties by taking into account spatial, temporal, and spectral variability in soil properties. The volume also covers various innovative research studies on soil and water productivity of vegetable cultivation under water-stressed areas, application of coir geotextiles, and the role of biofertilizers in controlling soil degradation and maintaining fertile topsoil. Crop management strategies to enhance the efficient use of marginal and saline lands for nonconventional crops are also discussed. The book is divided into four sections, covering: engineering interventions in irrigation management technological interventions in management of soil properties technological inventions for soil and water conservation crop management for non-conventional use This volume will serve as an invaluable resource for academicians, researchers, engineers, agronomists, extension officers, students, and farmers in the broad discipline of agricultural and biological engineering.

Managing water resources is one of the most pressing challenges of our times - fundamental to how we feed 2 billion more people in coming decades, eliminate poverty, and reverse ecosystem degradation. This Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, involving more than 700 leading specialists, evaluates current thinking on water and its interplay with agriculture to help chart the way forward. It offers actions for water management and water policy - to ensure more equitable and effective use.This assessment describes key water-food-environment trends that influence our lives today and uses scenarios to explore the consequences of a range of potential investments. It aims to inform investors and policymakers about water and food choices in light of such crucial influences as poverty, ecosystems, governance, and productivity. It covers rainfed agriculture, irrigation, groundwater, marginal-quality water, fisheries, livestock, rice, land, and river basins. Ample tables, graphs, and references make this an invaluable work for practitioners, academics, researchers, and policymakers in water management, agriculture, conservation, and development.Published with IWMI.

The chapters of the book have been selected and arranged in such a manner as to lead the students through the entire gamut of rainfed agriculture supported by suitable examples and diagrams. The topics covered are most relevant in view of growing interests in rainfed agriculture technologies. The focus is on new concepts and approaches in dryland and rainfed lands; rainfed farming-introduction, characteristics, distribution and problems; efficient management of rainfed crops; water harvesting and moisture conservation; study of mulches and antitranspirants; principles of intercropping; concept of watershed resource management; drought and its management; soil erosion-definition, nature and extent of erosion; stress physiology; scope of agro-horticultural, agro-forestry and silvi-pasture in dryland agriculture etc. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This title is co-published with NIPA.

In most developing countries wastewater treatment systems are hardly functioning or have a very low coverage, resulting in large scale water pollution and the use of very poor quality water for crop irrigation especially in the vicinity of urban centres. This can create significant risks to public health, particularly where crops are eaten raw. Wastewater Irrigation and Health approaches this serious problem from a practical and realistic perspective, addressing the issues of health risk assessment and reduction in developing country settings. The book therefore complements other books on the topic of wastewater which focus on high-end treatment options and the use of treated wastewater. This book moves the debate forward by covering also the common reality of untreated wastewater, greywater and excreta use. It presents the state-of-the-art on quantitative risk assessment and low-cost options for health risk reduction, from treatment to on-farm and off-farm measures, in support of the multiple barrier approach of the 2006 guidelines for safe wastewater irrigation published by the World Health Organization. The 38 authors and co-authors are international key experts in the field of wastewater irrigation representing a mix of agronomists, engineers, social scientists and public health experts from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. The chapters highlight experiences across the developing world with reference to various case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Mexico and the Middle East. The book also addresses options for resource recovery and wastewater governance, thus clearly establishes a connection between agriculture, health and sanitation, which is often the missing link in the current discussion on 'making wastewater an asset'.

This valuable book, the third volume in the Research Advances in Sustainable Micro Irrigation series, focuses on sustainable micro irrigation management for trees and vines. It covers the principles as well as recent advances and applications of micro irrigation techniques. Specialists throughout the world share their expertise on:

Automation of micro irrigation systems

Service and maintenance of micro irrigation systems

Evaluation of micro irrigation systems

Scheduling of irrigation

Using municipal wastewater for micro irrigation

Micro-jet irrigation and other systems

The effect of potassium, acid lime, and other elements"

This publication provides guidance for water users and districts in selecting, managing, inspecting, and maintaining their water measurement devices. Describes the standard methods and devices used to measure irrigation water. Acquaints irrigation system operators with other established but less common methods and with new or special techniques.

The AQUASTAT Programme was initiated with a view to presenting a comprehensive picture of water resources and irrigation in the countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and providing systematic, up-to-date and reliable information on water for agriculture and rural development. This report presents the results of the most recent survey carried out in the 18 countries of the Middle East region, and it analyses the changes that have occurred in the ten years since the first survey. It contains the detailed profiles on the situation in each country.

Contains the engineering tools and concepts that have proven useful in planning, constructing, and maintaining drainage systems for successful long term irrigation projects. Provides a ready reference and guide for making accurate estimates of drainage requirements.