Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad&nbsp;(IIT Palakkad or IIT PKD) is a public autonomous&nbsp;engineering&nbsp;and&nbsp;research&nbsp;institute located in&nbsp;Palakkad,&nbsp;Kerala. It was&nbsp;one of the five new&nbsp;IITs&nbsp;proposed in the&nbsp;2014 Union budget of India. The campus was inaugurated on 3 August 2015. The institute has 94 faculty, 978 students, and 63 non-teaching staffs.

IT Palakkad currently offers four-year Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) and two years MS programmes in 8 different engineering disciplines including&nbsp;Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Civil among others.

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IIT Palakkad

Environmental Sciences and Sustainable Engineering Centre (ESSENCE)

World University root node

AGU Fall Meeting {\ldots}

The Future Potential of Brazilian Sugarcane Ethanol with respect to Land Availability and Climate Change

IUFRO World Congress

Potential production of short rotation coppice willow in Denmark

98th ESA Annual Convention

Reducing uncertainty through data-driven model development

Phosphorus (P) indices, originally developed to assess the risk of P export to aquatic systems from agricultural fields receiving inorganic fertilizers and livestock manures, are being used for other P sources with different characteristics and methods of application. This study determined Pennsylvania P index scores for eleven crop fields of Penn State University's Living Filter system receiving 130 kg P2O5 ha-1 (115 lb P2O5 ac-1) in 2008 via sprinkler irrigation of municipal wastewater effluent. A baseline assessment of P index treated effluent irrigation as surface application of completely soluble P source material with maximum potential of runoff P loss. Three fields located ≤22 m (200 ft) from streams ranked high and very high in P loss rating under baseline assessment. Modified assessments involved changing the application method multiplier and P source coefficient to more accurately reflect the year-round intermittent application of P via sprinkler irrigation. All fields were ranked as having low risk of P export using the modified parameters. Site monitoring data from nearly 50 years of effluent irrigation show no evidence of excess P transport to groundwater or off-site surface water, suggesting that baseline assessment might be overestimating P loss rating of some fields. Results underscore the need to tailor P indexing tools to address the differential risk of P loss for specific P sources and application methods. Copyright © 2013 Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

Applicability of phosphorus site indices to wastewater effluent-irrigated cropland

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts 2012, B43F

Two-way Coupling of a Process-Based Crop Growth Model (BioCro) and a Biogeochemistry Model (DayCent) and its Application to an Energy Crop Site in the mid-west USA

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts 2012, H51O

Impacts of energy cane expansion on ecosystem services: A Florida case study

Irrigation reuse of municipal effluents conserves freshwater resources and avoids direct nutrient discharges to surface waters. The sustainability of agricultural reuse programs, however, may be challenged by evolving phosphorus (P)-based nutrient management policies. This paper assesses the agricultural and environmental implications of soil P accumulation from effluent irrigation and discusses sustainability under guidelines to control P export in agricultural runoff and drainage. For typical regulatory maximum irrigation rates (5.1-cm-wk-1), secondary effluents containing 3-4-mg-P-L-1 provide ∼90-kg-P-ha-1-yr-1 and cause soil P enrichment beyond levels needed for optimum crop yields. Applied P potentially falls short of crop needs for advanced wastewater treatment processes with low (<0.5-mg-L-1) effluent P or where hydraulic rates are restricted by soil, climatic, or regulatory conditions. Except for some locations where well-drained low P-retention soils overlie shallow groundwater, effluent-irrigated P has minimal impact on water quality. Most site assessment tools (P indices) were developed to identify fields with high P loss vulnerability from manure and commercial fertilizer application and do not explicitly address effluent-applied P. Adoption of P-management regulations not accounting for the differential behavior of P in effluent-irrigated fields may unnecessarily restrict agricultural irrigation of reclaimed water. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Journal of Environmental Engineering (United States)

Phosphorus management for sustainable agricultural irrigation of reclaimed water

Land treatment of municipal wastewater effluent is a proven method for augmenting freshwater resources and avoiding direct nutrient discharges to surface waters. We assessed changes in soil test phosphorus (P) of the Ap horizon of cropped fields continuously irrigated for 26 yr with secondary effluent from the Penn State University wastewater treatment plant. For annual P additions averaging 97 kg P ha-1, Mehlich-3 P (M3P) response in the 0- to 20-cm surface soil (initially &lt;20 mg kg-1) was represented by two lines. For the first 12 yr of irrigation, soil test P increased, with 14.5 kg P ha-1 needed to increase M3P by 1 mg P kg-1. After the initial buildup, M3P maintained a quasi-steady-state value of ∼110 mg kg-1. Over time, the surface soil equilibrium P concentration at zero sorption increased markedly (from &lt;1 to 5.5 mg P L-1), and extractable aluminum (Al) decreased significantly (P &lt; 0.001). Speciation modeling using Visual MINTEQ suggests complexation of Al by dissolved organic carbon at site pH conditions. Loss of Al from the surface layer lowered its P-sorbing capacity, causing added effluent-P to move into the subsoil. Results suggest that current management practices can continue for many years without exceeding the surface soil M3P environmental threshold (200 mg kg-1) used in state P-based nutrient policies. Copyright © 2011 by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. All rights reserved.

Journal of Environmental Quality

Long-term phosphorus fertility in wastewater-irrigated cropland

The Pennsylvania State University

Soil phosphorus dynamics in a sprinkler irrigation system for land application of municipal wastewater effluent

Vegetated buffers strips typically have limited ability to reduce delivery of dissolved phosphorus (DP) from agricultural fields to surface waters. A field study was conducted to evaluate the ability of buffer strips enhanced with drinking water treatment residuals (WTRs) to control runoff P losses from surface-applied biosolids characterized by high water-extractable P (4 g kg -1). Simulated rainfall (62.4 mm h-1) was applied to grassed plots (3 m x 10.7 m including a 2.67 m downslope buffer) surface-amended with biosolids at 102 kg P ha-1 until 30 min of runoff was collected. With buffer strips top-dressed with WTR (20 Mg ha-1), runoff total P (TP = 2.5 mg L-1) and total DP (TDP =1.9 mg L -1) were not statistically lower (α = 0.05) compared to plots with unamended grass buffers (TP = 2.7 mg L-1; TDP = 2.6 mg L -1). Although the applied WTR had excess capacity (Langmuir P maxima of 25 g P kg-1) to sorb all runoff P, kinetic experiments suggest that sheet flow travel time across the buffers (∼30 s) was insufficient for significant P reduction. Effective interception of dissolved P in runoff water by WTR-enhanced buffer strips requires rapid P sorption kinetics and hydrologic flow behavior ensuring sufficient runoff residence time and WTR contact in the buffer. Substantial phosphate-adsorbent contact opportunity may be more easily achieved by incorporating WTRs into P-enriched soils or blending WTRs with applied P sources. Copyright © 2008 by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. All rights reserved.

Managing biosolids runoff phosphorus using buffer strips enhanced with drinking water treatment residuals

The Not So Big Squeeze: Modeling Future Land Use Patterns of Miscanthus for Bioenergy Using Fine Scale Data

GCB Bioenergy,

Perennial biomass crops on marginal land improve both regional climate and agricultural productivity