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Sustainable Agriculture Water Management

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Water Sustainability

  • 198 Accesses

  • Originally published in
  • R. A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022

Glossary

Irrigation :

Irrigation is the artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall. Additionally, irrigation also has a few other uses in crop production, which include protecting plants against frost, suppressing weed growing in grain fields and helping in preventing soil consolidation.

Agriculture Drainage :

Agricultural drainage is using surface ditches, subsurface permeable pipes, or both to remove standing or excess water from poorly drained lands. Excess water in the crop root zone soil is injurious to plant growth. Crop yields are drastically reduced on wet soils.

Evapotranspiration :

The loss of water from the soil by both evaporation and by transpiration from plants growing in the soil.

Soil Health :

Soil health is a measure of soil functions, which can be defined as the optimum status of the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    William F. Ritter

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  1. William F. Ritter
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Correspondence to William F. Ritter .

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  1. Vienna, VA, USA

    Harry X. Zhang

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  1. The Water Research Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, USA

    Harry X. Zhang Ph.D., P.E

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Ritter, W.F. (2023). Sustainable Agriculture Water Management. In: Zhang, H.X. (eds) Water Sustainability. Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2466-1_1129

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