Impact of alternative water sources on soil and environment

The growing world population has augmented the generation of wastewater significantly and its proper management has become a worldwide challenge as the disposal of untreated wastewater contaminates the water sources and spreads water-linked health issues. Proper management of this huge volume of wastewater is also vital for realizing many UN’ SDGs such as “SDG6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production)”. Moreover, good-quality water resources are inadequate to fulfill the rising demands of the growing population. Under this condition, the application of treated wastewater for crop production is a viable alternative. Wastewater contains basic plant supplements that enhance crop production. Wastewater irrigation has been associated with some other advantages as well, for example, decreased requirement of chemical fertilizer that results in better and healthy farm produce. Most of the previous studies, however, revealed that long-term utilization of wastewater can cause environmental issues in agro-environments. For instance, it can build nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations alongside other hazardous components in the soil over time. It can also change the physical properties of soil, for example, hydraulic conductivity and leaching efficiency which additionally blocks the draining of damaging salts through the soil. The aforementioned environmental and soil-related problems of wastewater irrigation can be minimized by executing some better approaches such as the partition of industrial wastewater to contain the most toxic wastewater portions and by developing a better treatment infrastructure. This paper presents an outlook on wastewater use for crop production. All the possible sources of related and up-to-date literature have been accessed and more than 120 publications were collected and thoroughly analyzed. The implication of the study along with its rationale is provided. The impact of wastewater on soil and the environment is discussed. Its environmental impacts are described and some conclusions are summarized which is followed by recommendations for future research based on the existing knowledge gaps.