Agricultural Irrigation Water and Wastewater Management Strategies for Reduction of Environmental Hazards and Risks on Agricultural Lands In the Caribbean: A Case Study in the Caroni River Basin, Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies

Water and wastewater management, a topic of immense significance, encompasses various initiatives such as reuse, recycling, and discharge, all aimed at promoting responsible water utilisation, treatment, and disposal, with a focus on watershed preservation. This research study aims to explore the approaches suitable for assessing performance of permeable geotextile materials to improve water supply and wastewater quality for agricultural irrigation, to assess and quantify the performance of permeable geotextile membranes installed in water storage tanks for reducing wastewater pollution loads and effectively mitigate potential environmental hazards and risks on agricultural lands in the Caribbean. The study uses a permeable geotextile membrane in a WWRprototype placed in a storage tank, a state-of-the-art compact combination of water treatment technologies based on filtration through a gravel profile, which will be employed to reclaim water for agricultural irrigation. Water reclaimed through the WWRprototype (RW) from a secondary effluent of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), conventional irrigation water (CW) and the secondary effluent (SW) from the WWTP, were employed to cultivate lettuces in a shade house in Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies (W.I.), using drip and sprinkler irrigation methods, thus establishing six treatments. Assessments of irrigation water's physicochemical and microbiological quality and the agronomic and microbial quality of crops from all treatments showed that results associated with RW complied with relevant standards and guidelines in all cases. The assessments will conclude that the WWR-prototype is an appropriate technology for safe water reclamation oriented to agricultural production that can be complemented by a proper irrigation method to reach safety targets. The research will conduct assessments of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) and willingness to pay (WTP) to inform the national voluntary standard for wastewater reuse and for implementation of treated wastewater and water management strategies for effectively mitigating environmental hazards and risks on agricultural lands.