Location: Agricultural Water Efficiency and Salinity Research Unit
Project Number: 2036-12320-011-009-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Mar 1, 2023
End Date: Feb 28, 2027
Objective:
The overall goal of this project is to develop highly effective multi-layered biochar-based systems to polish treated municipal wastewater (TMW) and thus mitigate the introduction of antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), and antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) into agricultural systems during irrigation. This integrated project will be achieved through a combination of Research and Extension at the University of California and the U.S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, California.
Approach:
Determine the efficacy of a broad spectrum of biochar materials in terms of their removal of antibiotics, ARGs, and ARB from water and use the most effective materials to design a bench-scale polishing system for the removal of these emerging contaminants from real and/or synthetic TMWs.
Treat real and/or synthetic TMWs using the designed bench-scale systems, comparing the levels of antibiotics, ARGs, and ARB in the influent and effluent to determine the removal efficacy of the system.
In a greenhouse pot study, use influent and effluent solutions from the bench-scale polishing system to irrigate different crops, comparing temporal changes in the microbiomes (including ARGs and ARB) of soils and plants irrigated with non-polished and polished TMWs.
Design, fabricate, and operate a scaled-up, on-farm biochar-based system that is coupled with an on-farm irrigation system to provide polished TMW for crop production under field conditions, comparing spatio-temporal changes in the microbiomes (including ARGs and ARB) of soils and plants irrigated with non-polished and polished TMWs; evaluate the system at two farms over two growing seasons.
Quantify the risk mitigation potential offered by the biochar-based polishing system in terms of antimicrobial dissemination in agricultural cropping systems.
