BENEFITS OF SEA DESALINATION FOR CULTIVATION

Hello friend of the farm in this opportunity I am going to speak to you about the benefit that the desalination of the sea water provides for the cultivation. If you have the false myth that there is enough water on the planet, of all that water that exists on the planet, 97% is seawater with an average salinity of 33,000 and represents an inexhaustible water resource, which is not subject to climatic variations and that to be able to use it requires technology or processes of desalination.

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Water is one of the most important elements of nature: it is essential in the processes of life and forms the habitat of both microorganisms and large aquatic communities. However, the world is running out of fresh water, every day many agricultural regions of the world present serious problems of water availability for domestic, industrial and agricultural use.
Where will be enough water to supply the entire population and agricultural activities, livestock. Aware that climate change is altering the hydrological cycle in various ways in time scale and geographic areas.
A viable technological solution is represented by alternate waters or renewable waters, such as brackish and marine waters.
Currently agriculture is not growing in many regions and the problems of scarcity to maintain existing production systems can no longer be adequately maintained. The proven hydric deficit in many aquifers causes decreases in piezometric levels and affects water quality through salinization processes and marine intrusion in coastal aquifers, although the influence is different depending on the degree of exploitation of the same .

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SEAWATER
Seawater is a water-based solution that makes up the oceans and seas of the planet. It is salted by the concentration of dissolved mineral salts that it contains in solution, among which sodium chloride predominates, also known as table salt. The water of the sea, which covers almost three-quarters of the earth's surface, is bitter and salty, and its density is greater than that of the water of the rivers and of almost all the lakes. The minerals contained in the sea water are equivalent to 3.5% of its volume. The main ones are sodium chloride, which is the most abundant, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, potassium, silica and bromine.
Brackish and marine waters represent a viable technological solution for agriculture due to the shortage of fresh water.
Since it contains iron, copper, tin, silver, nickel, gold and virtually all known minerals on the earth's surface. Of all the minerals known by sea water, sodium chloride is the most abundant, since it accounts for around 70% of the total. To this salt, the salty flavor is due, while the bitter taste is originated by magnesium salts

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MAIN CONSTITUENTS OF SEA WATER.
Constituent Total Dissolved Solids
Sodium (Na +) 10,500
Magnesium (Mg2 +) 1,350
Calcium (Ca2 +) 400
Potassium (K +) 380
Chloride (Cl-) 19
Sulfate (SO42-) 2,700
Bicarbonate (HCO3-) 142
Bromide (Br-) 65
Other solids 34
Dissolved Solids SDT 34,500
Totals
Water (balance) 965,517

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The salinity of the sea varies according to different factors. The shallow tropical seas, where evaporation is very active, are the saltiest of the polar seas, where the glaciers provide large amounts of fresh water when they melt. They are also less salty than the seas where they drain many rivers whose waters decrease the proportion of salinity in the sea.

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POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF DESALINATION
The primary benefit of water desalination is the increase in the availability of good quality water for the irrigation of horticultural crops. The brackish waters from the mountains and coastal aquifers coupled with the potential use of the waters of the Oceans create new sources of water availability for agricultural regions around the world.
In addition to the desalination of seawater, desalination technologies can be used to produce drinking water of excellent quality from brackish water or pollution problems. Many of the superficial and subterranean waters are brackish due to the increase in their saline concentration, especially in the coastal aquifers due to their overexploitation.
In times of water scarcity and an on demand of fresh water due to the population growth of a region, and current trends given by climate change, the water resource will increasingly reach an unequal distribution in the various regions where a drought is experienced prolonged
Desalination can be an alternate source of rapidly available water and as part of the solution to the problem of future water needs. Especially when conventional water resources are limited by discovered abatments, pollution and environmental requirements.

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WATER DESALINATION MACHINE
Moreover, methods of managing water availability such as surface water, storage, underground extraction, and transfers or transfers may not be sufficient to increase water demand.

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THE DESALINATION, CAN OFFER VARIOUS BENEFITS INCLUDING:
Increase in water availability. Recovery and beneficial use of water with pollution problems
Increase in water availability during periods of drought.
Decrease in the need to import water through the development of alternate local sources.
Diversification and increase of the reliability and flexibility of water supply availability operation.
Improvements in the quality of drinking water.
Protection of public health.
Wastewater facilities and encourage the recycling of it.
Decrease in water salinity for agricultural irrigation.
The desalination process allows obtaining high levels of water quality that may have low salt concentrations, but have problems with high concentrations of specific contaminants such as nitrates. Therefore, desalination is a useful tool in the planning of the water resource that serves to improve water use and management strategies for different uses, especially for agricultural irrigation.

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COSTS OF DESALINATION
The factors that determine the costs of desalination include the capacity and type of installation, location, type of water supply to the plant, labor, type of energy used in the plant, financing costs and elimination of rejection or brine. . Desalination controls pressure, temperature and brine concentrations to optimize efficiency. Desalination with nuclear energy could be economic on a large scale.

water to the plant, labor, type of energy used in the plant, costs of financing and elimination of rejection or brine. Desalination controls pressure, temperature and brine concentrations to optimize efficiency. Desalination with nuclear energy could be economic on a large scale.

"Desalinated water can be a solution for some regions of water stress, but not for poor places, within a continent or at a high elevation, which includes some of the places with the most water problems." The fertirrigation system represents one of the highest initial costs of agricultural production.

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AGRONOMIC PROBLEMS PRESENT IN THE SEA WATER DESALINATION PROCESSES
Productivity
Quality of the crops
Soil quality (conservation)
Higher cost in fertigation

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RELEVANT ASPECTS
Marine desalinated water for agricultural irrigation can lead to agronomic problems and affect crop productivity, crop and soil quality or substrates, and higher fertigation costs, compromising its short-term economic viability and medium and long-term environmental sustainability. term where it is used.
The most recent examples are presented in Israel at the desalination plant where symptoms of nutritional deficiencies appeared in the crops and significant reductions in quality and production with unsatisfactory results.
Currently the quality of seawater for agricultural irrigation is not regulated; therefore, there are no guarantees about the composition of the water supplied and its long-term homogeneity.
The first point to take into account is that the desalinated marine waters leave the desalination plant with very low salinity but unbalanced in terms of anions and cations. This represents a low mineralization due to important imbalances in its composition and is not suitable for any type of supply (domestic, agricultural and industrial). Therefore, it must undergo remineralization treatments that may be in the desalination plant itself or in the place where the pumping plants and Fertigation injection systems are located or, where appropriate, establish a mixing program of desalinated water with saline continental waters. to correct these imbalances and thus obtain a good quality water for irrigation of horticultural crops of high economic value and export quality.
Another significant problem is the presence of a high concentration of boron, which can cause phytotoxicity problems in crops sensitive to it. As is known, boron is a very soluble element that tends to concentrate in environments with limited circulation of water (groundwater), linked to environments with evaporites or brines of marine or continental origin.

SOURCE:
https://www.intagri.com/articulos/agua-riego/la-desalinizacion-de-agua-de-mar-para-riego
https://www.revistacircle.com/2018/07/18/agricultura-con-agua-de-mar/

I hope that my article has been of interest to you.