Reducing Evaporative Water Losses from Irrigation Ponds through the Reuse of Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottles
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 2
Abstract
Evaporation is one of the sources of water loss from artificial reservoirs used by the agricultural sector. Current methods of covering artificial reservoirs are too costly to be used by poor, small-scale farmers. This paper presents a method for using waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to reduce the evaporative losses from open tanks. This water-conservation method was tested using eight evaporation pans with daily water level measurements to record evaporation rate. Four pans were used as controls, two were covered with empty waste PET bottles, and two were covered with bottles partially filled with soil. The experiment showed an average reduction in evaporation by 40% with the PET bottle treatment, with a 90% confidence of reducing evaporation by at least 18%. The addition of soil did not affect the degree of evaporation reduction. Given the local economics of the region surrounding Pune, India, it was found that this intervention can save water at a cost of .
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Vishal Jagtap, Dr. Yogesh Kulkarny, and the rest of the Energy & Environment section of the Vigyan Ashram, India, for conducting the evaporation pan experiment, evaluating water quality, helping our understanding of small-scale farming around Pune, and their excellent hospitality. We would also like to thank the Tata Center at MIT. Without their support for travel and research, this would not have been possible.
References
Cornish, G., and Bosworth, B. (2004). “Annex 1.” 〈http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5690e/y5690e0b.htm〉 (Oct. 20, 2014).
Craig, I., Green, A., Scobie, M., and Schmidt, E. (2005). “Controlling evaporation loss from water storages.” National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture, Univ. of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia.
Dasgupta, B., and Khurana, S. (2008). “Waste management of PET bottles.” J. Environ. Res. Dev., 2(4), 862–867.
Efron, B. (1979). “Bootstrap methods: Another look at the jackknife.” Ann. Stat., 7(1), 1–26.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). (2011). “India.” Aquastat, 〈http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/countries_regions/IND/index.stm〉 (Oct. 20, 2014).
Foster, S. (2008). “Ground water use in Aurangabad—a survey and analysis of social significance and policy implications for a medium-sized Indian city.”, Washington, DC.
Frenken, K. (2011). “Irrigation in southern and eastern Asia in figures.”, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy.
Gorbaty, E. (2013). “Development of an efficient off-grid pumping system and evaporation reduction strategies to increase access to irrigation for smallholder farmers in India.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
MATLAB version 8.4.0 [Computer software]. MathWorks, Natick, MA.
Rengel, Z. (2013). “Current state and future potential of global food production and consumption.” Improving water and nutrient-use efficiency in food production systems, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, U.K., 10.
Saleth, R. (1997). “Water pricing experiences: An international perspective.” Washington, DC.
Sinha, S. (2006). “Evaporation control in reservoirs.” Government of India, Central Water Commission, Basin Planning and Management Organization, New Delhi, India.
Vaidyanathan, A. (2001). “Tanks of south India.” Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India.
Webb, H., Arnott, J., Crawford, R., and Ivanova, P. (2013). “Plastic degradation and its environmental implications with special reference to poly(ethylene terephthalate).” Polymers, 5(1), 1–18.
Yao, X., Zhang, H., Lemckert, C., Brook, A., and Schouten, P. (2010). “Evaporation reduction by suspended and floating covers: Overview, modeling, and efficiency.”, Griffith Univ., Queensland, Australia.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 20, 2015
Accepted: Aug 27, 2015
Published online: Oct 9, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Mar 9, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.