Schoor, M.; Arenas-Salazar, A.P.; Parra-Pacheco, B.; García-Trejo, J.F.; Torres-Pacheco, I.; Guevara-González, R.G.; Rico-García, E. Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint. Agriculture2024, 14, 925.
Schoor, M.; Arenas-Salazar, A.P.; Parra-Pacheco, B.; García-Trejo, J.F.; Torres-Pacheco, I.; Guevara-González, R.G.; Rico-García, E. Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint. Agriculture 2024, 14, 925.
Schoor, M.; Arenas-Salazar, A.P.; Parra-Pacheco, B.; García-Trejo, J.F.; Torres-Pacheco, I.; Guevara-González, R.G.; Rico-García, E. Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint. Agriculture2024, 14, 925.
Schoor, M.; Arenas-Salazar, A.P.; Parra-Pacheco, B.; García-Trejo, J.F.; Torres-Pacheco, I.; Guevara-González, R.G.; Rico-García, E. Horticultural Irrigation Systems and Aquacultural Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint. Agriculture 2024, 14, 925.
Abstract
The expansion of food production is getting more important due to a rising world population, which is relying on food security on a regional and local scale. Intensive food production systems create a negative impact on the regional ecosystem because of agrochemical pollution and nutrient rich water discharges into nearby rivers. Furthermore, these systems are highly depending 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 sustainable water footprint. In addition, the review includes an analysis if the combination of both production system into aquaponic food production and the possibilities of water saving. There are a variety of water footprint analyses for crop and aquatic animal production, but there is also a lack of information about the system management including irrigation systems, system cleaning processes, water substitution, pond removal, evaporation due to climate change and especially in aquaculture, the water footprint of industrial elaborated fish feed.
Keywords
Food Production, Food Security, Sustainability, Water Resources
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Ecology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.