Seawater Irrigation Is Solution To Water Shortages

“Agriculture is a major user of ground and surface water in the United States, accounting for 80% of the Nation's consumptive water use and over 90% in many Western States” (“Irrigation and Water Use”). As population grows, our demand for food and agriculture also grows. Therefore, we need a more efficient irrigation system.

In “U.S. to tighten tap for farmers”, Bloomekatz mentioned that the government had reduced or even refused to supply water to some agriculture fields in 2009. In Central Valley, the government had refused to provide water for over 200 water districts. In the same time, the government had also reduced the municipal and the industrial allotment by half. Reduced water allotment forced farmers to grow fewer crops which eventually lead to the lay-off of current employees. This is when water shortage and irrigation are not only an ecological problem but also an economic problem.

Since most of our freshwater is used for irrigation, we are left with 2 options: find an alternative irrigation system or continue to waste water. Restructuring our irrigation system will solve a large portion of our freshwater shortage problem. In 1998, seawater irrigation came into the picture. “Seawater irrigation is defined as growing salt-tolerant crops on land using water pumped from ocean for irrigation” (Gleen, Brown, and O’Leary 77). Seawater irrigation is promising because 97% of our planet is covered by saltwater. Compared to 1% of freshwater, we will have greater flexibility with saltwater.

On the other hand, seawater irrigation also has some drawbacks. Salinity is the main problem. Salt concentration will increase over time if we don’t provide appropriate treatment to the soil (Ashraf, Ozturk, and Athar 189). However, authors mention that we can solve salinity problem by using an appropriate water drainage leaching system (189).

Another drawback is that most of our plants can’t survive saltwater. In “Irrigating Crops with Seawater”, Gleen, Brown, and O’Leary mention that the upper limit for most salt tolerant plants are 15ppm which is still lower than the 35 ppt salt concentration in saltwater (77). Authors argue that growing conventional plant with seawater will cause the salt to build up in the root and cause the plant to die. If we want to use saltwater, we have to come up with a much more salt-tolerant plants such as Halophytes.

Additional Benefits: Halophytes

Halophyte is a wild salt-tolerant plant. Gleen, Brown, and O’Leary mention that there are around 2,000 to 3,000 species of halophytes.