Irrigation Water Quality Assessment of Industrial Effluents Used for Irrigating Crops in Semi-arid Ecological Zone of Nigeria (Published)
Provision of quality treated wastewater effluents in form of irrigation water will potentially be an option to augment the water needs in agricultural irrigation. However, if the effluents did not meet the irrigation quality standards, their application will be detrimental to the receiving soils, consequently leading to soil and crop quality deterioration. The aim of this study is to assess if Sharada industrial effluents are fit for irrigation application. The irrigation water quality assessment was carried out in three phases (Phases I, II and III) of the industrial locations. Findings indicated that the concentration of the major key irrigation water quality parameters; Electrical conductivity (EC), pH, Exchangeable sodium (Na), Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Total dissolved solids (TDS) were of good quality and suitable for irrigation regardless of phases. However, the concentration of bicarbonate (HCO3), Chlorides (Cl), Potassium (K) and Nitrate (NO3-N) values detected in the samples were 488, 305, 305meq/l, 177.50, 159.75, 124.25meq/l, 18.99, 17.72, 13.50mg/l, and 119.09, 59.54, 31.53mg/l respectively. These values were high and of poor quality, thus, unfit for irrigation. Moreover, NO3-N and HCO3 in all irrigation effluents recorded high significant difference (P<0.05) in phase I compared to other phases while, Cl and K were highly significant (P<0.05) in phases I and II in comparison to phase III. Overall, the result when tested for irrigation quality compliance using International Standards revealed that compliance was achieved with reference to pH, EC, Na, Ca, Mg and TDS, while noncompliance was recorded for other irrigation water quality indices indicating that the effluents will be suitable for irrigation under careful, adequate and very effective proper management including improved irrigation system and schedule, soil with good permeability, infiltration and internal drainage, and use of good salt tolerant crops. The importance of this research lies in the fact that the effluents could not be a reliable and effective potential source of irrigation water rich in nutrients capable of increasing soil fertility and crop quality as is the practice of the farmers in the area.
Keywords: : Irrigation, Effluents, Soil Quality, Water Quality, crop quality
Impact of Small-scale Irrigation on Farm Households’ Technical Efficiency: The Case of Girawa District, East Hararghe, Oromia, Ethiopia (Review Completed - Accepted)
This study evaluated the impact of small-scale irrigation on farm households’ technical efficiency of production in Girawa district, East Hararghe, Oromia, Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary data were collected for the study. Primary data were collected from 200 sample respondents drawn from both participant and non-participant households. Econometric models were employed for data analysis. Stochastic production frontier model was used for technical efficiency estimation and Propensity score matching method was applied to analyze the impact of small-scale irrigation on the technical efficiency. The logistic regression was employed to estimate propensity scores. In matching processes, kernel matching with band width of 0.5 was found to be the best matching algorism. This method was also checked for covariate balancing with a standardized bias, t-test, and joint significance level tests. The results revealed that households that participate in irrigation practice have got an improvement of 8.92% in technical efficiency than those households that were not participating in irrigation practice. Results showed that participation in irrigation has a significant, positive and robust impact on the outcome variables. The sensitivity analysis also showed that the impact estimates are insensitive to unobserved selection bias. All results obtained from different models revealed the positive impact of irrigation on farm household technical efficiency. Therefore, policy makers should give due emphasis to the aforementioned variables to increase participation in irrigation farming and improve the livelihood of rural households.
Keywords: : Irrigation, Propensity Score Matching And Stochastic Frontier, Technical Efficiency