Beneficial and negative impacts of wastewater for sustainable agricultural irrigation: Current knowledge and future perspectives

Currently world faces the high risk of water crisis and the rising human population and changing climatic conditions accelerate this challenge. Therefore there is urgent need of water management for the human beings and all the living organisms. Agriculture is currently the world's largest water consumer. Furthermore, it has been anticipated that by 2050, the amount of water available for agricultural irrigation will have to increased by 70% to meet the demand of food for the rising global population. In this scenario, wastewater may be a viable option as a source of water for the agricultural irrigation. Although the waste water contains various trace elements and fertilizers contents and these can be used to enhance the agricultural production. However the presence of heavy load of some toxic compounds/metals in the waste water negatively affect the quality of plant, soil as well as environment and human health. Therefore in this chapter we have discussed briefly the merit and demerits of waste water utilization for agricultural irrigation.