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Spray Irrigation

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Book cover Desalination Concentrate Management

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science ((GREENCHEMIST))

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Abstract

Irrigated agriculture is the largest consumer of the world’s water resources. A decline in the availability of fresh water is driving the use of waters with increasing salinity to be used for irrigation. The irrigation of salt tolerant plants, or halophytes, is a way of addressing this issue and freeing up fresh water for other uses. In the context of brine disposal, spray irrigation is the practice of using concentrate for irrigation of crops, lawns, and other vegetation. The major requirement of this process is that the salinity of the water is acceptable for use on the desired plant. Depending on the salinity of the concentrate, it may be used as is, or diluted with less saline water to bring the concentration of salt to a range where it is acceptable to use on halophytes and salt tolerant non-halophytes. As each plant species has a different salinity tolerance, the amount of concentrate that can be applied depends on the species of plant, the characteristics and salinity of the soil and concentrate that is to be used.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Bradley Ladewig & Benjamin Asquith

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  1. Bradley Ladewig
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  2. Benjamin Asquith
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Correspondence to Bradley Ladewig .

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Ladewig, B., Asquith, B. (2012). Spray Irrigation. In: Desalination Concentrate Management. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24852-8_6

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