Crop Yield Impacts of Saltwater Intrusion into Freshwater Irrigation

by Mackenzie Wookey

Submitted : Spring 2020

Irrigational salinity can be detrimental to the health of plants. Salinity, or salt concentrations in water, must be kept to minimal amounts in order to produce crops of the highest yield. If too much salt is in the water, the plant will become stressed and decrease yields. Therefore, it is important for farmers to minimize the salinity in irrigation systems to maximize profits. In order to determine the concentrations of salt in water, separable differential equations can be used. This project used separable differential equations to calculate the concentration of salt in a water well system intruded by seawater at any given time. The salt concentration was converted to ppm in order to effectively evaluate the salinity level. Based upon those levels, the expected environmental impact on the crops was analyzed to be detrimental and a recommendation to move the well system away from the ocean and or change the crop variety was made.

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