Environmental Assessment of Underdrain Designs for Granular Media Filters in Drip Irrigation Systems

Joan Pujol, Francesc X. Espinach, Miquel Duran-Ros, Gerard Arbat, Toni Pujol, Francisco Ramírez de Cartagena and Jaume Puig-Bargués
Additional contact information
Joan Pujol: Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain
Francesc X. Espinach: Design, Development and Product Innovation, Department of Organization, Business, University of Girona, 17071 Girona, Spain
Miquel Duran-Ros: Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain
Gerard Arbat: Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain
Toni Pujol: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, University of Girona, C/Universitat de Girona 4, 17003 Girona, Spain
Francisco Ramírez de Cartagena: Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain
Jaume Puig-Bargués: Department of Chemical and Agricultural Engineering and Technology, University of Girona, C/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 61, 17003 Girona, Spain

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-14

Abstract: Irrigation is very important for global food production and, therefore, it is key to moving towards increasingly sustainable irrigation systems. However, the adoption of more efficient water-use techniques, such as drip irrigation, increases energy consumption. A large part of the efficiency of drip irrigation systems depends on the equipment used, such as filters. The environmental impact of three media filters (a prototype with a porous media underdrain and two commercial filters, with inserted domes and collector arms underdrains, respectively) with different bed heights, filtration rates, and medium materials was studied using the life cycle analysis (LCA). Under the operating conditions that minimize the impact, the inserted domes design has the lowest overall impact, achieving reductions of up to 432% and 18% in some impacts regarding the porous media and the collector arm, respectively. A porous media filter has a better energy performance, but its prototype status hinders it in the raw material, building, and end-of-life phases. Conversely, the arm collector has the worst environmental performance. This work shows that filter designs should prioritize solutions that allow for minimizing the energy consumption during their operation to increase its sustainability.

Keywords: irrigation equipment; life cycle assessment; environmental impact; filtration; sustainability; energy consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/810/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/6/810/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:6:p:810-:d:831384

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().