Water Treatment Technology Breaks the Dilemma of Global Agricultural Irrigation

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that agriculture is the largest consumer of water resources in the world, accounting for 70% of the global total freshwater withdrawal; in countries with prominent agricultural status and water scarcity, this proportion even rises to more than 80%. Israel, Australia, northeastern Brazil and some Mediterranean countries have long been trapped in difficulties such as insufficient annual precipitation, scarce surface water resources, high proportion of underground brackish water, and excessive irrigation water quality. Problems such as intensified soil salinization, crop yield reduction due to water shortage, and declining agricultural product quality have followed one after another, seriously restricting agricultural production efficiency and threatening the stability of regional food security.

"Drought is not a dead end for agricultural development, and poor-quality water sources are by no means unusable. Water treatment technology is reshaping the new pattern of agricultural development in arid areas," Heba Alhariry, FAO Officer for Land and Water Resources, said in an interview. 

In areas where water scarcity and poor water quality overlap, targeted water treatment technology can play a more "precise breakthrough" effect, and the practices of many agriculture-dominated countries in Africa are particularly typical. As a continent with frequent droughts and prominent agricultural status in the world, more than 60% of African countries are facing the dilemma of insufficient per capita water resources, and groundwater in most areas cannot be directly used for agricultural irrigation, becoming a key bottleneck restricting agricultural development. In fact, groundwater in most arid areas around the world cannot be directly used for irrigation, and the core reasons are concentrated in three points: first, excessive salt content. In arid areas, evaporation is much greater than precipitation, and groundwater accumulates a lot of salt for a long time. Direct irrigation will lead to soil salinization, damage the water absorption capacity of crop roots, and eventually cause crop wilting and yield reduction; second, excessive pollutants. In some areas, groundwater is affected by industrial wastewater and agricultural non-point source pollution, containing heavy metals, harmful organic substances and other impurities. After irrigation, it will be absorbed by crops, which not only affects the quality of agricultural products, but also endangers human health through the food chain; third, high water hardness. Groundwater contains too many minerals such as calcium and magnesium. Long-term irrigation will lead to soil compaction, reduce soil air permeability and fertility, and then affect crop growth and development.

In Africa, major agricultural countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa are actively using water treatment technology to solve this dilemma. In the arid areas in eastern Kenya, the salt content of groundwater is generally 1.5 times higher than the irrigation standard. By introducing small-scale reverse osmosis water treatment equipment, the local area conducts in-depth desalination treatment of groundwater, reducing the salt content to an appropriate range, and promoting drip irrigation technology, which increases the per unit yield of major food crops such as corn and sorghum by more than 35%, effectively alleviating the pressure of food shortage. Ethiopia, aiming at the problems of excessive fluoride content and high hardness of groundwater, adopts an integrated water treatment process of "filtration + softening + disinfection". The purified groundwater can be directly used for irrigation of cash crops such as coffee and tea, which not only improves the survival rate of crops, but also improves the taste of agricultural products, helping the export of local cash crops. As an agricultural power in Africa, South Africa has increased investment in water treatment technology, establishing large-scale water treatment irrigation bases in arid areas such as the Western Cape Province, converting underground brackish water into qualified irrigation water, covering more than 1 million hectares of farmland, and effectively ensuring the stable production of crops such as wheat and grapes.

The continuous heating up of the global rural water environment governance market has provided strong support for the in-depth application of water treatment technology in agricultural irrigation. Relevant data shows that the capital expenditure in the global rural water environment governance field exceeded the historical peak in 2025, and it is expected to maintain a strong double-digit growth momentum from 2026 to 2030. Among them, the annual growth rate of patent applications for core technologies such as anti-pollution membrane materials and small-scale disinfection devices is more than 19%. At the same time, more than 50 countries around the world have updated or issued special plans for rural water supply and sewage treatment, of which more than 70% have clarified the quantitative target