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 book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

The author of this book has traveled extensively in many desert and semi-desert territories of the U.S.S.R., Morocco, Tunisia, the Egyptian region of the U.A.R., Pakistan and India where he realized the importance of water for the reclamation of vast areas of arid and semi-arid lands. During his visits the author became acquainted with the theory and practice of land irrigation in many countries of North Africa and Asia. The present book is the first attempt at generalizing the vast amount of material dealing with the hydrogeology of the irrigated lands of the arid zone of North Africa and Asia, stretching from the African coastline of the Atlantic Ocean to the central parts of Asia. Outlined in this book are the origin and distribution of saline lands in the deserts of North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Iran Highlands, Middle Asia, China and Mongolia. A description is given of the surface waters in irrigated areas of the arid zone together with the sources, movement and draining, infiltration, condensation and evaporation of water in the desert and semi-desert territories. The book gives a sketch of the regime of free ground waters in irrigated areas and methods of studying it, problems of water balance and its forecasting, based on experimental research and simple theoretical calculations. Principles of the hydrogeological division of irrigated lands into districts and basic measures to prevent their salinization are also given. The book can serve as a textbook for engineer-hydrogeologists, melioration specialists and students at specialized hydrogeological and agricultural institutes and schools.

The overriding lesson from history is that most irrigation-based civilizations fail. As we enter the third millennium the question arises: Will ours be any different?

For 6,000 years, irrigation has ranked among the most powerful tools of human advancement. The story of settled agriculture, the growth of cities, and the rise of early empires is, to no small degree, a story of controlling water to make the land more prosperous and habitable. Pillar of Sand examines the history, challenges, and pitfalls of irrigated agriculture — from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to twentieth-century India and the United States. By unmasking the risks faced by irrigation-based societies — including water scarcity, soil salinization, and conflicts over rivers — water specialist Sandra Postel connects the lessons of the past with the challenge of making irrigation thrive into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Protecting rivers and vital ecosystems as the world aims to feed 8 billion people will require a doubling of water productivity — getting twice as much benefit from each gallon removed from rivers, lakes, and aquifers. Pillar of Sand points the way toward managing the growing competition for scarce water. And it lays out a strategy for correcting a startling flaw of the modern irrigation age — its failure to better the lives of the majority of the world's poorest farmers.

The countries that make up the MENA region display wide diversity. One of the poorest countries in the world sits alongside two of the wealthiest, whilst the region's natural resources range from immeasurable oil and gas reserves to some of the scantiest natural endowments anywhere in the world. Yet through this diversity runs a common thread: water scarcity. Now, through the impact of human development and climate change, the water resource itself is changing,bringing new risks and increasing the vulnerability of all those dependent on water. Chris Ward and Sandra Ruckstuhl assess the increased challenges now facing the countries of the region, placing particular emphasis on water scarcity and the resultant risks to livelihoods, food security and the environment. They evaluate the risks and reality of climate change in the region, and offer an assessment of the vulnerability of agriculture and livelihoods. In a final section, they explore the options for responding to the new challenges, including policy, institutional, economic and technical measures.

Many countries around the world are struggling with the challenges of water scarcity, including water for crops. Micro irrigation methods are an effective means to make the most efficient use of available water. This volume, Micro Irrigation Scheduling and Practices, continues the efforts of the book series Innovations and Challenges in Micro Irrigation to provide informative and comprehensive knowledge on micro irrigation methods and practices. This new book presents some of the latest information and research on micro irrigation and covers the area of performance, practices, and design, focusing particularly on the performance of vegetable, fruit and row crops in conjunction with different scheduling and practices. Irrigation scheduling is an important water management strategy, and this book addresses scheduling methods and issues. Design aspects of micro irrigation systems have also been discussed in the book. The authors present their research and studies on scheduling practices and design micro irrigation systems with a variety of fruits and vegetables, including peppers, chili, watermelon, oranges, banana, litchi, rice, sugarcane, sorghum, and marigolds. Micro Irrigation Scheduling and Practices will serve as a valuable reference for researchers, water resources professionals, agricultural extension agencies, farmers, and faculty and students.

This book presents a variety of policy adoption methods, irrigation scheduling, and design procedures in micro irrigation engineering for horticultural crops. The chapters range from policy interventions to applications of systems for different crops and under different land conditions. Compiling valuable information and research, the book is divided into three main sections: Policy Options: Drip Irrigation Among Adopters Irrigation Scheduling of Horticultural Crops Design of Drip Irrigation Systems The editors present valuable research and information on micro irrigation methods in an effort to focus on innovation and evolving new paradigms for efficient utilization of water resources. The adoption of micro irrigation systems can be a panacea for irrigation related problems and can help to increase the yield and area under cultivation, especially for small farmers without abundant technological resources. Micro Irrigation Engineering for Horticultural Crops: Policy Options, Scheduling, and Design will be valuable for agricultural engineering students, irrigation engineers, and scientists/professors in engineering.

Nuclear and related techniques can help develop climate smart agricultural practices by optimizing water and nutrient use efficiency, assessing organic carbon sequestration in soil, and assisting in the evaluation of soil erosion control measures. Knowledge on the behaviour of radioactive materials in soil, water and foodstuffs is also essential in enhancing nuclear emergency preparedness and response. Appropriate sampling and sample preparation are the first steps to ensure the quality and effective use of the measurements and this publication provides comprehensive detail on the necessary steps.

Water for the People features twenty-five essays by world-renowned acequia scholars and community members that highlight acequia culture, use, and history in New Mexico, northern Mexico, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Spain, the Middle East, Nepal, and the Philippines, situating New Mexico's acequia heritage and its inherent sustainable design within a global framework. The lush landscapes of the upper Rio Grande watershed created by acequias dating from as far back as the late sixteenth century continue to irrigate their communities today despite threats of prolonged drought, urbanization, private water markets, extreme water scarcity, and climate change. Water for the People celebrates acequia practices and traditions worldwide and shows how these ancient irrigation systems continue to provide arid regions with a model for water governance, sustainable food systems, and community traditions that reaffirm a deep cultural and spiritual relationship with the land year after year.

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.