This book documents the history of irrigated agriculture and drainage in the San Joaquin Valley, and describes the hydrology and biogeochemical processes of salts and selenium, remediation technologies for salts and trace elements and policy and management options. The contents are comprised of fourteen chapter-length independent treatises, each depicting with fresh perspective a distinctive salinity drainage topic. The opening chapters detail the evolution of irrigated agriculture, and depict the geochemical and hydrological processes that define the San Joaquin Valley, including the physics, chemistry, and biology attributes that impact water management policies and strategies. Next, the contributors address the biogeochemistry of selenium, the role of plants in absorbing it from soils, and the processes involved in retaining and concentrating dissolved salts in drainage water. Further chapters describe on-farm and plot-level irrigation provisions to reduce agricultural drainage outputs and examine their effects on plant performance. This volume offers realistic policy analysis of water management options for irrigated agriculture in the Valley and assesses their respective outcomes, if implemented. Also included is an international perspective on the sustainability of irrigated agriculture there.
This book undertakes a study of the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) and a comparison with the Appalachian region. The eight-county San Joaquin Valley, part of California's Central Valley, is home to 5 of the 10 most agriculturally productive counties in the United States. By a wide range of indicators, the SJV is also one of the most economically depressed regions of the United States. This book analyses the SJV's counties and statistically documents the basis of current socio-economic conditions. The book further explores the extent to which the SJV shares similarities with and differs from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) area and a 68-county Central Appalachian sub-region which contains some of the most economically distressed counties in Appalachia. The book also examines the role of federal expenditures in the cities and counties of the SJV. In addition to examining socio-economic conditions in the SJV, the book provides analysis of water supply and quality issues especially those concerning agriculture, air quality concerns, and rail and shipping issues. It is fully indexed.
Biotreatment of Agricultural Wastewater is based on a symposium held in Lake Arrowhead, California in 1986, supported by a coalition of federal, state, and local agencies, and sponsored by the engineering firm of Swanson/Oswald Associates (Lafayette, California) and the research and development firms of Aquasearch, Inc. and EcoTechnology Corp. (La Jolla, California). This book is a synopsis of topics covered by world renowned experts on the biology and aquaculture of algae and bacteria and on the engineering of industrial scale systems for biological wastewater treatment and economists that were gathered to evaluate historically proven systems and develop new and innovative approaches to the biological treatment of agriculture wastewater.