Water Use Efficiency Advances And Challenges In A Changing Climate

This contributed volume describes management practices based on interdisciplinary and convergence science approaches from different disciplines of agricultural science to enhance the resilience of dryland agriculture. The main focus of this book is to address the current issues and trends along with future prospects and challenges in adopting salient agricultural management practices in drylands globally under a climate-change scenario. Climate change and global warming have profound repercussions on increasing frequency, severity, and duration of droughts and/or floods, which may have implications for future productivity of dryland agriculture, e.g., more water shortages or abundances and high or low runoff rates, diminished crop yields, and reduced water productivity. In past few years, many technological advancements and management strategies have been evolved to tackle the climate-induced risks of dryland agriculture considering interdisciplinary and convergence approaches that integrate knowledge from multi-disciplines. This book is an attempt to bridge the gap in literature by unraveling controversies and characteristics of dryland ecosystems under the changing climate and dealing with detailed procedures of applying the advanced practices adapted to climate change for management of dryland agriculture. This edited book is of interest to ecologists, economists, environmentalists, geologists, horticulturalists, hydrologists, soil scientists, social scientists, natural resource conservationists and policy makers dealing with dryland agriculture. This book offers a broad understanding of dryland agriculture and assists the reader to identify both the current as well as the probable future state of dryland agriculture in a global context.

Advances in Botanical Research, Volume 103 provides a timely and comprehensive update on the current knowledge of stomata development and operation in salt-grown plants. The range of topics covered includes evolution of stomata for adaptation to saline conditions, comparative analysis of proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic profiles of stomata guard cells between halophytes and glycophyte species and their reprogramming under salt stress, the molecular nature of the signals that control stomata aperture and their integration at the cellular and whole-plant level, and ecophysiological aspects of stomata operation in crop and halophytes species. Written by leading international experts in the field Provides a comprehensive update on several hot topics in one volume Integrates information at various levels of plant functional organization, from molecular to whole-plant level

Ending hunger, achieving food security and promoting sustainable development are at the top of the list of United Nations (UN) sustainable global development priorities. In the times of high population growth and increasing pressure of agricultural systems, efficiency in use of natural resources has been at the epicenter of sustainable agricultural. The concept of ‘Input efficiency’ implies production of high quantity and quality of food, from using only finite natural resources as inputs, in the form of mainly land, water, nutrients, energy, or biological diversity. In this book, editors provide a roadmap to the food, nutritional, and environmental security in the agricultural systems. They share insight into the approaches that can be put in practice for increasing the input use efficiency in the cropping systems and achieve stability and sustainability of agricultural production systems. This book is of interest to teachers, researchers, climate change scientists, capacity builders and policymakers. Also the book serves as additional reading material for undergraduate and graduate students of agriculture, agroforestry, agroecology, and environmental sciences. National and international agricultural scientists, policymakers will also find this to be a useful read.

Water scarcity has become one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today. Its scarcity is compounded by climate change and increasing demand from a growing population. In South Africa, over 60% of the available freshwater resources are used in agriculture, mainly in irrigated agriculture. There is an urgent need to promote sustainable irrigation technologies that optimize food production without increasing water applied and with positive environmental spinoffs. Sustainable irrigation technologies and practices could enhance water use efficiency (WUE) and productivity in agriculture and reduce environmental burdens, including energy use. This chapter highlights some of the innovative irrigation practices and technologies that enhance food production and, at the same time, reduce water use in agriculture. The chapter broadly discusses WUE and water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture from engineering and agronomic perspectives. The chapter further highlights some of the environmental impacts of irrigation expansion and the possible solutions. We further provide the importance of accurate spatial information on irrigated areas to inform policy on irrigation expansion. The Water Research Commission (WRC) of South Africa has been spearheading research on the sustainable use of water for the past 50 years as part of its research agenda. In Ting, D. S.-K.; O’Brien, P. G. (Eds.). Progress in sustainable development: sustainable engineering practices. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier

This book covers a wide spectrum of water resources management, including water supply and demand, operation and maintenance of water distribution systems, water quality assessment, impacts of climate change on hydrological extremes, and water governance. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and population growth are the major factors contributing to a significant rise in water demands across all the sectors in India. Although the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall contributes primarily to the available surface and groundwater resources, recurrent non-uniform/erratic rainfall events have resulted in widespread water scarcity. On many occasions, extreme meteorological conditions trigger the severity of water-related disasters such as floods and droughts. The untreated wastewater from domestic and industrial sources discharged through un-engineered means, adds to the issue as it ends up polluting the surface and groundwater resources.