Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint

Mark Schoor, Ana Patricia Arenas-Salazar, Benito Parra-Pacheco, Juan Fernando García-Trejo, Irineo Torres-Pacheco, Ramón Gerardo Guevara-González and Enrique Rico-García ()
Additional contact information
Mark Schoor: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Ana Patricia Arenas-Salazar: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Benito Parra-Pacheco: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Juan Fernando García-Trejo: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Irineo Torres-Pacheco: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Ramón Gerardo Guevara-González: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico
Enrique Rico-García: Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Autonomous University of Queretaro, Santiago de Querétaro P.O. Box 76010, Mexico

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: The expansion of food production is becoming more important due to a rising world population, which is relying on food security on regional and local scales. Intensive food production systems exert a negative impact on the regional ecosystem because of agrochemical pollution and nutrient-rich water discharging into nearby rivers. Furthermore, these systems highly depend on regional water resources, causing water scarcity and soil erosion due to the overexploitation of natural resources in general. The objective of this article is to review the water usage in the two most water-intensive food production systems, agriculture and aquaculture, showing lacking areas like system management and climate change, which must be considered in the implementation of a sustainable water footprint. In addition, the review includes an analysis of the combination of both production systems in aquaponic food production and the possibilities of water saving. There are a variety of analyses related to water usage for crop and aquatic animal production, but in these analyses, there is a lack of information about system management in general, which includes cleaning processes, water substitution, pond removal, water evaporation, and, especially in aquaculture, the water usage required for industrially elaborated fish feed.

Keywords: food production; food security; sustainability; water resources (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: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/6/925/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/6/925/ (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:14:y:2024:i:6:p:925-:d:1413094

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 ().