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Project Topic
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In the Mediterranean basin, climatic changes in 30 years will lead to a temperature increase of 2°C to 4°C which would reduce rainfall by up to 30%. This fact will increase the establishment of water limits. In addition, water demand is expected to be multiplied by 2 and even 3. Furthermore, its utilization is unbalanced by various sectors (Industry, Tourism, Agronomy,..,) and at different scales (The field of agriculture is considered to be the most consuming water from 70% to 80%). This situation contributes to the degradation of the irrigation water, (essentially scarcity and high salts concentrations) which is accentuated by overexploitation of the natural resources, poor management and pollution. These facts will limit the development of the agriculture and affects crop yields which increase food prices and food security challenges.
In order to overcome the problems of charged water and scaling problems, researchers have been proposing several techniques for water treatment, such as desalination, filtration, electrodialyse,...
Desalination treatment requires high energy consumption and high technical skills for monitoring and changing membranes. Furthermore, the high costs of the used energy causes excessive costs and additional burdens to farmers, investors and governments. The classical filtration process is based on commercial membranes and also presents a weak technical efficiency method for water treatment. This is due to the weak capacity of the membrane to trap small sizes of both minerals and salts having about tens of nanometers scales. To overcome such drawbacks, recent techniques such as magnetic and nanotechnology treatments have been developed.
The incorporation of magnetic fields in agriculture is considered a potential solution to reduce the salinity problems of the irrigation water. The optimization of the influencing agronomic factors combined to the utilization of magnetic fields, offers different advantages such as increase of yields crops, water productivity, reduction of costs,... Thus, magnetized water used for irrigation improved the efficiency of irrigation systems and the agricultural crops production. In fact, magnetic treatment of irrigation water improves root growth by increasing soil nutrient availability and leading to a better assimilation of nutrient and so an increase in fertilizers efficiency.
On the other hand, nanotechnology revolution and are introduced to solve the water quality problem by effective and cheap treatment techniques. The percentage of treatment (charges) can reach up to 85% of specific elimination. In agriculture, multifunctional nanomaterials are simultaneously experimented as mineral nano-filters, salts and nano-fertilizers. This technique could be an efficient strategy to specially enhance the quality of irrigation water, to foster plant growth and agricultural yield.
The project includes some sustainable development goals (SDGs) (mainly the improve the water management, the quality and increase agricultural production, SDG2 end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture, SDG6 goes beyond drinking water, sanitation and hygiene to also address the quality and sustainability of water resources ....). In this context, a new precise sm@rt process (Sm@wa-Medi) applied in the field of agriculture will be developed based on the combination: Nanotechnology-Magnetic-Filtration treatments using nanofiber. So, the project investigates machine learning and intelligents systems for learning, modeling, optimization, and prediction of parameters of the water treatments for enhanced agriculture. The objective of Sm@wa is to offer a system for water treatment technology and solutions that should help Mediterranean to better govern and manage water resources and protect the quality of water, soil and increase crop yields by improving the performance of irrigation systems and minimizing costs and increasing profit margins
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