6/14/13

6/14/13, 9:00pm, The Beijing Center
Today in class we continued to talk about water. The topic that caught my attention the most was agricultural irrigation. Typically, irrigation wastes a lot of water. In the states, we use large systems that shower water over plants. This is extremely inefficient because a lot of the water evaporates into the air before it hits the ground. Drip irrigation is a way better alternative because it is already at the ground, reducing the amount of water needed to water the plants. Saving water is extremely important because aquifers are being drained because we're running out of usable fresh water. In class we talked about how without drip irrigation, Chinese farmers hand pour water onto crops. This would be very inefficient in terms of time, and it would also use more water. Another way to reduce water use is to switch to less water intensive crops. For example, rice uses a lot of water. Wheat takes less water, so it is a good alternative to rice.