Protected horticulture in-between pollution and saving of water resources
Tognoni F., Serra G., Pardossi A.
1 Dipartimento di Biologia delle Piante Agrarie, Università degli Studi
di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
2 Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e Perfezionamento Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
3 Dipartimento di Produzione Vegetale, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133 Milano,
Italy
Abstract
The problem of quantity and quality of water is becoming more and more worring. Mankind activities - civil and industrial settlements, agriculture - are continuously depleting the fraction of freshwater in favour of waste one.
The increasing use of water in many activities (civils as well as agricultural) reduces its availability.
Water in the next future, in some Countries even today, would become a constraint to all human activities.
At the moment agriculture is the largest consumer of water, more than 50% and in some cases even 70% is used for irrigation. Its large use and misuse due to over-watering in order to improve plant productivity may cause at the least two main problems: a) salinization of water table due to sea-water infiltration called by too many wells; b) ground-water pollution from fertilizer and pesticides leached.
From now on one can expect that one of the grower main targets become to reach the most water use efficiency.
One cannot deny that protected cultivations in the last few year are becoming a popular technique in the mild climate areas. This cultivation system allow the production regardeless esternal climate but at the same time, a more efficient use of resources and among these water is the most important. In fact, it is well known that greenhouse may reduce water up to 50% with respect to outside production.
Through the analysis of greenhouse crops in Italy and in other European countries, the paper introduces some issues relative to protected horticulture, such as the socio-economical aspects, the environmental impact and the technologies to reduce it (irrigation and fertilization scheduling of irrigation and fertigation, closed-loop soilless system, integrated pest management).
It is proposed that protected horticulture may contribute substantially to the development of many regions all over the world and reduce the use and the pollution of water resources, provided suitable technologies are employed.