Agricultural Water Management最新文献

{"title":"Harnessing nanoparticles to enhance crop production under drought stress: A quantitative meta-analysis","authors":"Hongzhao Li ,&nbsp;Zihui Wang ,&nbsp;Chengxiang Zhou ,&nbsp;Huashuai Wang ,&nbsp;Lingyun Chen ,&nbsp;Huaiyu Yang ,&nbsp;Dunyi Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109550","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109550","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drought stress (DS) severely threatens global food security, necessitating innovative solutions to enhance crop resilience. Nanoparticles (NPs) show potential for mitigating water scarcity and improving agricultural productivity; however, current research lacks systematic quantitative integration of NP-induced enhancement drought resilience mechanisms. We address this gap through a meta-analysis of 83 peer-reviewed investigations, employing effect size calculations (<span><math><mrow><mi>ln</mi><mi>RR</mi></mrow></math></span>) to systematically quantify NP-induced improvements in crop drought resistance, while identifying critical determinants including NP types, application methods, and optimal concentrations. Our results demonstrate that NP applications under DS significantly enhanced crop growth and improved water use efficiency (WUE) by 28.3 % and 52.4 %, respectively, through osmotic regulation mediated by proline and soluble sugar accumulation. Furthermore, antioxidant enzyme activities were enhanced by 14.2–25.6 %, while H₂O₂ and MDA levels reduced by 39.1 % and 29.4 %, respectively. Foliar delivery at 100–150 mg L⁻¹ emerged as the optimal NP application strategy. ZnO NPs demonstrated the highest efficacy in enhancing drought resilience across crop types. We elucidated the physiological mechanisms through which NPs enhance drought tolerance and provide practical guidance for their agricultural application. Our findings support the development of more targeted and efficient crop management strategies in drought-prone regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109550"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143937257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Irrigated agricultural production dynamics in response to rainfall variability and water policy reforms in the southern Murray-Darling Basin of Australia","authors":"Ketema Zeleke ,&nbsp;David J. Luckett","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109539","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109539","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Murray-Darling Basin water market dataset was used to assess the change in cropping mix, the relationship between water demand and supply factors, and the trend in irrigation area and production of major irrigation crops in the past two decades. The introduction of innovative water policies such as interregional water trading and intertemporal water transfers via the carryover of unused water allocations (in public dams) from one year to the next were found to be key interventions to manage the Basin’s water resources efficiently and sustainably. Cotton is replacing rice as an alternative annual broadacre crop in the Murrumbidgee catchment. As a result, rice is grown as an opportunistic crop only in more ideal years in terms of rainfall and/or availability of irrigation water. In the Victorian Murray region below the Barmah Choke, almond plantation water use has grown by almost 185 % in the past two decades mainly by replacing pasture, and by using water available on the market from the upstream catchments in Victoria and New South Wales. Carryover water stabilises water price and, in drought years, increases agricultural production as water price is highly correlated with water availability (dam levels). There is a significant positive correlation between general (i.e. “low”) security water <em>allocation</em> and rice production, and the gross value of irrigated agricultural production (GVIAP) of rice. There is also a significant positive correlation between <em>carryover</em> and agricultural production and GVIAP. Water markets and carryover were found to be important water policy measures to manage temporal and spatial irrigation water availability and variability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109539"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143932239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rhizosphere bacterial community confers drought tolerance to Astragalus mongholicus","authors":"Shuyan Li,&nbsp;Peirong Li,&nbsp;Hao Ding,&nbsp;Simin Zhao,&nbsp;Jiamin Ai,&nbsp;Gehong Wei,&nbsp;Zhefei Li","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109543","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109543","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drought stress significantly inhibits the growth of <em>Astragalus mongholicus</em>, leading to reduced biomass, decreased photosynthetic efficiency, and exacerbated oxidative damage. In our study, the accumulation of saponins and flavonoids in <em>Astragalus</em> roots markedly increased under moderate drought stress. These secondary metabolites further reshaped the rhizosphere microbial community structure, significantly increasing its diversity and interaction network complexity. Notably, drought stress enriched beneficial bacterial genera such as <em>Rhizobium</em> and <em>Pseudomonas</em> in the rhizosphere soil. Combined with the isolation of culturable microorganisms and the co-occurrence network of the rhizosphere bacterial community, we constructed a 13-strain synthetic community (SynCom) and simplified it to 7 strains. Compared with the noninoculated control, under moderate drought stress, inoculation with the simplified SynCom significantly increased plant growth, increasing the aboveground fresh weight by 50.10 %, dry weight by 55.29 %, and underground fresh weight by 76.40 %. Similarly, plants treated with the synthetic community presented significant increases in aboveground fresh weight and dry weight compared with those of the noninoculated control, with increases of 46.98 % and 61.54 %, respectively. Moreover, inoculation with the simplified community significantly reduced the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) and improved the catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) activities and leaf photosynthetic parameters (Fv/Fm and Y(II)) of <em>Astragalus</em>. Our findings provide new insight into improving the yield and quality of <em>Astragalus</em> and highlight the potential of synthetic rhizosphere microbial communities for assisting plants in coping with abiotic stress.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109543"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143929598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Study on the inversion and spatiotemporal variation mechanism of soil salinization at multiple depths in typical oases in arid areas: A case study of Wei-Ku Oasis","authors":"Jinming Zhang ,&nbsp;Jianli Ding ,&nbsp;Zihan Zhang ,&nbsp;Jinjie Wang ,&nbsp;Xu Zeng ,&nbsp;Xiangyu Ge","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109542","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109542","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil salinization is a widespread issue in arid and semi-arid regions, severely threatening agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. However, accurately modeling and predicting soil salinity at multiple depths over time remains a challenge due to complex interactions among environmental factors and limited ground observations. Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of soil salinity and its driving factors is essential for formulating more scientific and rational irrigation strategies and remediation methods. Taking the Wei-Ku Oasis, a typical arid region oasis, as an example, this study uses Landsat remote sensing imagery as the data source, incorporating soil salinity field measurements over a decade, employing the Bootstrap Soft Shrinkage(BOSS) algorithm to select feature variables, and building soil salinity inversion models at various depths through a Convolutional Neural Networks and Long Short-Term Memory networks (CNN-LSTM) framework. The spatiotemporal variation of soil salinity in the Wei-Ku Oasis is analyzed, and the driving mechanisms of soil salinity change in the study area are explored using the optimal geographic detector. Results indicate that: (1) The multi-depth soil salinity inversion models built with the CNN-LSTM framework exhibit superior predictive performance, with the 0–10 cm soil salinity prediction model achieving the highest accuracy, attaining an R² of 0.7 in the test set. The R² values for the test set of soil salinity prediction models at 10–20 cm, 20–40 cm, 40–60 cm, 60–80 cm, and 80–100 cm depths are 0.5, 0.57, 0.53, 0.5, and 0.52, respectively. (2) Based on soil salinity classification, the area of non-salinized soil at all depths shows an increasing trend, whereas non-salinized soil within the oasis exhibits salinity accumulation. (3) Soil salinity in the Wei-Ku Oasis is influenced by multiple types of driving factors, with the interaction of any two factors enhancing the explanatory power for salinity changes. Future research could also focus on more refined soil salinity mapping across seasons, obtaining more comprehensive driving data with higher temporal and spatial resolutions, analyzing the transfer mechanisms of soil salinity between different soil depths, and providing a theoretical basis for the scientific management of salinization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109542"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143929599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Connecting the drops: A methodological challenge for the deployment of ICTs in mediterranean irrigation systems","authors":"Kevin Daudin ,&nbsp;Gilles Belaud ,&nbsp;Crystele Leauthaud ,&nbsp;Zhour Bouzidi ,&nbsp;Caroline Lejars","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109545","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109545","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The vulnerability of irrigated systems in areas coping with water scarcity has boosted the demand for information and communication technologies (ICTs), e.g. tools and services derived from field sensors or satellite data. ICTs are promising tools to track and quantify water flows and transfers, yet their increased accessibility and production benefits does not often lead to their increased deployment beyond the group involved in the initial design and testing process. To support technological innovation scaling, an interdisciplinary approach and an original methodology are developed and implemented. The objective is to explore the dynamics of ICTs initiatives in irrigation systems and facilitate horizontal outreach. Technological emergence and diffusion is captured through in-depth analyses of information and collaboration processes operated by the technologies. Investigation into global and local datasets to map irrigation technical layouts at a regional scale shows a gap between representations of irrigation phenomenon, but used in combination these information sources can help characterize diffusion potential. Feedbacks from empirical works in a set of multistakeholder innovation platforms show that collaborative mechanisms during technological experimentations can be diverse but remain crucial to empower irrigation communities. This methodological investigation fuels the debate on digital agriculture, and shows that there are alternative avenues for irrigation sustainable development through technology. Finally, pathways for information and knowledge circulation across actors, scales, and contexts are identified, highlighting researchers’ role to collect, document, and share datasets and stories. Still, learning opportunities should not obscure the operational challenges towards a translocal network of ICTs initiatives for irrigation systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109545"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143921591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Connection between water consumption of apple production and subsurface water depletion on the Loess Plateau of China","authors":"Peijun Shi ,&nbsp;Jianjun Yang ,&nbsp;Yi Yang ,&nbsp;Zhi Li","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109546","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109546","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Economic tree species, particularly those in the agroforestry ecosystems, significantly impact subsurface hydrological processes due to their high transpiration and water demand. Understanding the impacts of agroforestry systems on subsurface water is crucial for sustainable water management, but quantitative regional-scale assessment remains challenging. This study investigated the relationship between water consumption in apple production and subsurface water in the Changwu County on the Loess Plateau of China. Using the dataset of apple orchard areas and yields from 1995 to 2020, we quantified the consumed water and depleted subsurface water by apple production, and subsequently analyzed their relationships with water table. Results indicated a clear linkage between water table decline and water consumption for apple production. Since 2005, precipitation has been unable to meet water demand of apple production, leading to progressive depletion of subsurface water. By 2020, the cumulative water depletion in the study area reached 3.6 × 10⁷ m³, corresponding to a 63 mm decline in the water table depth equivalent to 11 % of mean annual precipitation. Both water consumption for apple production and subsurface water depletion showed linear growth trends in parallel with orchard expansion. The spatial extent of apple orchards was identified as the primary driver of regional subsurface water depletion. Intensive apple production has disrupted groundwater connectivity in this area, thereby increasing the risk to subsurface water. These findings provide valuable insights for balancing sustainable water management and agricultural production.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109546"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143929597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The potential of irrigation for cereals production in Sub–Saharan Africa: A machine learning application for emulating crop growth at large scale","authors":"Ana Klinnert ,&nbsp;Marco Rogna ,&nbsp;Ana Luisa Barbosa ,&nbsp;Pascal Tillie ,&nbsp;Edoardo Baldoni","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The low percentage of land equipped for irrigation and the scarce land agricultural productivity render Africa an ideal target for irrigation projects. These have the potentials of increasing and stabilizing yields, thus contributing to food security and poverty reduction. The present paper investigated the potentials of irrigation in the whole Sub-Saharan region with the aim of individuating areas where intervention should be prioritized. The analysis is conducted via a mix of simulations through the crop model DSSAT and machine learning, namely XGBoost. Yield differentials for four cereals, millet, maize, sorghum and rice, are computed together with water requirements under a low fertilization scenario that reflects current agricultural practices in the region. By crossing the resulting water productivity levels and run-off values, most promising areas of intervention are individuated. The average increase in yields varies between roughly 14% and 17%, depending on crop, but these figures may be drastically improved if combined with an intensification of nutrient ans organic matter provision.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"314 ","pages":"Article 109488"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143918608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unveiling the resilience of the water-energy-food nexus: A context-specific framework and evolutionary insights for the Yellow River Basin","authors":"Guiliang TIAN ,&nbsp;Jiawen LI ,&nbsp;Zheng WU ,&nbsp;Qiuya Zhao ,&nbsp;Qing Xia ,&nbsp;Jinyi Zhang ,&nbsp;Xingchao Niu","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109514","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109514","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the face of climate change, resource competition, and socioeconomic uncertainties, it is urgent to establish a theoretical framework for Water-Energy-Food nexus resilience (WEFNR) that is better adapted to regional characteristics and to conduct further analysis based on this foundation. Current research lacks adequate handling of complexity and context-specific adaptability. This study constructs a resilience framework for the Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEFN) in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) based on grounded theory (GT) and analyzes the processes, patterns, and driving mechanisms of WEFNR using the NPP-RF-PSO model and the Geodetector model. The study finds that (1) Water-energy-food nexus resilience (WEFNR) in the YRB comprises four dimensions: Resource Connectivity and Allocation Capacity (RCAC), Uncertainty Response and Adaptive Capacity (URAC), Institutional Effectiveness and Social Adaptability (IESA), and Sustainability of Ecological Infrastructure (SEI). (2) Compared with traditional TOPSIS and PP models, the ranking results of the NPP-RF-PSO model demonstrate a higher degree of innovation in ranking logic, with Kendall correlation coefficients as low as −0.0130 and −0.0311, respectively, and a superior ability in sample differentiation, as indicated by a high coefficient of variation (CV) of 7.5896 for the normalized scores. WEFNR in the YRB exhibits a trend of fluctuating growth over time, with a clear spatial gradient. (3) The primary driving factors have shifted from policy management to climate factors and agricultural technology innovation, with increasingly evident interactions between climate factors, policy management, and other factors. Accordingly, drawing on symbiosis theory, optimization strategies for WEFN resilience in the Yellow River Basin are proposed from the perspectives of symbiotic units, symbiotic relationships, and symbiotic environment, including enhancing the adaptability of resource systems, establishing cross-regional coordination mechanisms, and improving ecological compensation and market regulation mechanisms, providing new theoretical and practical references for resilience research in similar basins worldwide.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109514"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143921590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of root growth on salt leaching and soil structure improvement in saline soils: A case study of Suaeda salsa","authors":"Yanyan Wang ,&nbsp;Tongkai Guo ,&nbsp;Changyan Tian ,&nbsp;Ke Zhang ,&nbsp;Zhenyong Zhao ,&nbsp;Xiaomin Mao ,&nbsp;Wenxuan Mai","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109533","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109533","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Halophytes reduce soil salinity through significant shoot salt accumulation and facilitation of salt leaching. However, quantitative evidence on how <em>Suaeda salsa</em> L. (<em>S. salsa</em>) roots interact with saline soil to facilitate salt leaching remains limited. This study investigated the effects of <em>S. salsa</em> planting on salt removal, soil salinity, and soil quality under four soil salinity levels (0.1 % none-saline, 0.6 % lightly saline, 1.1 % moderately saline, and 2.6 % severely saline soils) using soil column experiments. Results showed that <em>S. salsa</em> planting significantly reduced soil salinity in the 0–20 cm layer. In lightly to moderately saline soils (0.6 %–1.1 % salt content), above-ground Na removal accounted for 12.1 %–19.3 % of soil total Na; in severely saline soils (2.6 % salt content), this dropped to 4.3 %. Compared with bare saline soil, <em>S. salsa</em> planting improved soil quality through increasing total soil porosity (TSP) by 51.6 %–109.6 %, pore connectivity (PC) by 144.5 %–550.7 % in the 0–20 cm layer; enhancing saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) by 100.7 %−373.8 %, and reducing bulk density (BD) by over 4.0 % in 0–100 cm soil profile. Correlation analysis revealed that root length (RL) and root average diameter (RAD) were positively correlated with TSP, PC, connected pore numbers (CPN), and Ks but negatively correlated with BD and soil moisture (SM). Root-induced soil quality improvements promoted salt leaching in the 0–20 cm layer, achieving desalination rates of 45.5 %–54.8 % in lightly to moderately saline soils and 24.6 % in severely saline soils. Furthermore, <em>S. salsa</em> planting reduced topsoil salt accumulation, decreasing salinity by over 55.0 % in the 0–20 cm layer compared to uncultivated soils. Therefore, continuous cultivation of <em>S. salsa</em> is an effective biological strategy for remediating saline-alkali land by improving soil quality and promoting salt removal.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"314 ","pages":"Article 109533"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143918606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Upcycling human excreta-derived products through sustainable seedling production: Feasibility studies","authors":"William Musazura ,&nbsp;Taruvinga Badza ,&nbsp;Siphesihle Nxumalo ,&nbsp;Stephen O. Ojwach ,&nbsp;Alfred Oduor Odindo","doi":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109538","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109538","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Managing human excreta and organic waste from municipal solid waste is important for a cleaner environment. The recent circular bioeconomy paradigm brought the idea of sustainable resource recovery and reuse through valorising organic waste streams and wastewater reuse. Many studies have been done on human excreta valorisation, but the adoption of bio-fertilisers by farmers is poor due to unclear policies and the absence of viable business models. This study investigated the feasibility of upcycling domestic wastewater and human excreta-derived co-compost through seedling production. A greenhouse experiment was done using a randomised complete design to assess the effects of domestic wastewater and co-compost on parameters for best practices in seedling production. Three vegetables (onion, tomato and Swiss chard) were used as test crops. Data was collected on growing media characterisation, seedling vigour and <em>E. coli</em> contamination. Economic analyses used water usage data to assess the financial viability of seedling production. Using wastewater and co-compost on seedling production was comparable to conventional practices. The significant benefits are saving water and fertiliser costs, creating employment, ensuring food and nutrition security, combating social ills such as crime, minimising the carbon footprint in local food production systems and mitigating environmental pollution. The major limitation is marketing the seedlings to niche markets due to prohibitions on Good Agricultural Practices certifications. Depending on local regulations farmers may produce seedlings for use on their farms or market them in their food production networks. Policymakers should review the use of human excreta fertilisers, and active participation of regulatory authorities is needed to allow bio-certification of eco-innovations such as seedlings. This will provide opportunities for seedling producers to penetrate the niche market.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":7634,"journal":{"name":"Agricultural Water Management","volume":"315 ","pages":"Article 109538"},"PeriodicalIF":5.9,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143921589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}