Insights from socio-hydrological modeling to design sustainable wastewater reuse strategies for agriculture at the watershed scale

Hanseok Jeong, Rabin Bhattarai, Jan Adamowski and David J. Yu

Agricultural Water Management, 2020, vol. 231, issue C

Abstract: Wastewater reuse in agriculture can be a viable option to solve future freshwater shortages but may need an additional treatment process (Stage-II) to become a safe option. As wastewater reuse interacts with many facets of coupled human and water systems, the introduction of Stage-II treatment systems in wastewater reuse in agriculture must be understood in terms of socio-hydrology. This paper builds on a place-based socio-hydrological model of a wastewater-reused watershed in South Korea and uses it to: (1) identify key parameters in human and water systems that have a significant impact on wastewater reuse in agriculture; (2) explore the impacts of changing agricultural environments by altering the key parameters; and (3) develop the possibility space of future changes from current decision-making. Key parameters concern the characteristics of urbanization, domestic water use, and greenhouse cultivation. Urbanization can reduce the demand for Stage-II irrigation within an urbanizing watershed by reducing irrigation areas and increasing water availability. Domestic water use has a large impact on the economics of indirect wastewater reuse. Greenhouse cultivation influences the demand for Stage-II irrigation, mainly by reducing water availability. Moreover, it could further affect the demand if the communities evolved to have a greater concern for the use of groundwater resources. The possibility space shows that wastewater reuse has a strong influence on groundwater and could relieve agricultural water deficits through the diversification of irrigation sources, and could be a more economical irrigation practice than groundwater irrigation under changing agricultural environments.

Keywords: Coupled human and water systems; Irrigation; Possibility space; Socio-hydrology; Urbanization; Water reuse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:231:y:2020:i:c:s0378377419302458

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105983

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