Abstract

SANCHEZ, Luis Darío; LATORRE, Jorge  and  VALENCIA-ZULUAGA, Viviana. Improving irrigation water quality through multi-stage filtration (MSF). Agron. colomb. [online]. 2009, vol.27, n.3, pp.407-415. ISSN 0120-9965.

With the aim of reducing clogging risk in the emitters of localized high-frequency irrigation systems (LHFI), the present experiment, conducted at a pilot scale, evaluated the performance of a series of multi-stage filtration technologies (MSF) in improving irrigation water quality. Four MSF configurations were evaluated in terms of their effect on a series of water physicochemical and microbiological factors that affect emitter clogging. The effluent resulting from the application of each of these technologies fed four types of LHFI systems. The results point at slow sand filtration as the best MSF configuration. In contrast, by producing medium clogging risk water quality parameters, ring filtration exhibited the weakest performance. By reaching minimum admissible irrigation uniformity after 4.7 months, Lyn and self-compensated drip systems showed the best irrigation times. We propose a preliminary MSF-LHFI scheme selection matrix based on time of irrigation operation and raw water quality. The need was seen to develop further studies on particle size as a probable emitter clogging factor.

Keywords : irrigation water quality; localized high-frequency irrigation; clogging risk; irrigation uniformity coefficient.

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