US and Israel launch joint study to use treated wastewater in agriculture

University of California, Riverside (UCR) and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have jointly initiated a two-year research programme for using treated wastewater in agriculture.

Researchers at the universities expect the study to offer viable and economic solution for regional water reuse policies.

UCR environmental economics and policy associate professor Kurt Schwabe is the lead researcher for the programme which is titled as ‘Enhanced Resilience of Local Agricultural Water Supplies through Reuse of Municipal and Agricultural Water: A Dynamic Economic Analysis.’

The study will be reviewing the existing research on the use of treated wastewater solutions.

It will also assess the impact of the use of treated water on crop yields and weigh up how economical the use of new technologies will be landscaping and agriculture.

Schwabe said: "The long-term goal is to determine the most cost-effective approach to utilising treated wastewater with an eye toward water supply reliability and maintaining water quality standards.

"Given the integral role wastewater reuse will play in an agency’s water supply portfolio, a clearer understanding of reuse possibilities and their implications on agency costs can be helpful. Yet to identify cost-effective solutions to these problems requires an interdisciplinary approach.

"Collaborating with researchers in engineering, economics and soil science is a much more effective strategy to solve issues than a piecemeal or siloed approach."

The initiative is expected to assist the ongoing water scarcity conditions in the US, parts of which have been suffering from drought, including California.

UCR environmental and chemical engineering assistant professor and co-principal investigator for the project David Jassby said: "Our hope is that wastewater utilities can engineer their treatment trains to meet the demands of farmers so we can better reuse wastewater in a way that is cost-effective, rather than send it to the ocean.

"In the long term, we hope we will be able to optimize wastewater treatment processes so they are better matched to the agricultural end uses of the water. To the best of our knowledge, no one is looking at this kind of model."

US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture-Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund partnership, along with Israel will initially be supporting the study with a seed grant of around $300,000.

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Image: University of California, Riverside. Photo: Courtesy of Amerique / Wikipedia