Fiaz Ahmad

By Muhammad Sultan, Muhammad Bilal, Takahiko Miyazaki, Uzair Sajjad and Fiaz Ahmad

Nowadays, atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) became very essential to provide fresh potable water. This technique is in practice since 1900 (US661944A) by Edger S. Belden. Atmospheric water is a source of freshwater with 13000 trillion liters availability of water at any time and can be utilized in overcoming water shortage, especially in arid and rural areas. It holds up the water molecules in the form of vapors and accounts for adding 10% of all freshwater present on the earth. Mainly, the two most common methods have been used for the extraction of atmospheric water. First, the ambient air is cooled below the dew point temperature, and second in which the moisture in atmospheric air is adsorbed/absorbed using desiccant materials. Conventional vapor compression, thermoelectric cooling, dew, and fog water harvesting based systems/technologies possess some limits in terms of energy requirements, less efficiency, and high cost. However, the adsorption based AWH technology is relatively cheaper, environment friendly, and can be operated by a low-grade thermal energy source. The limited availability of commercial instruments to harvest atmospheric water using adsorbents indicates a lack of fundamental studies. The fundamental research on water adsorption, adsorption kinetics, regeneration conditions, and water collecting surface designs has not gained as much interest as required in the field of atmospheric water harvesting. In this regard, this book chapter discusses and presents the progress in the field of adsorbent materials and system designs along with the future directions to accelerate the commercialization of this technology.

Part of the book: Technology in Agriculture

By Fiaz Ahmad, Aftab Khaliq, Baijing Qiu, Muhammad Sultan and Jing Ma

Plant protection activities are most important practices during crop production. Application of maximum pesticide products with the sprayer. The application of fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides is one of the most recurrent and significant tasks in agriculture. Conventional agricultural spraying techniques have made the inconsistency between economic growth and environmental protection in agricultural production. Spraying techniques continuously developed in recent decades. For pesticide application, it is not the only sprayer that is essential, but all the parameters like the type and area of the plant canopy, area of a plant leaf, height of the crop, and volume of plants related to plant protection product applications are very important for obtaining better results. From this point of view, the advancement in agriculture sprayer has been started in last few decades. Robotics and automatic spraying technologies like variable rate sprayers, UAV sprayers, and electrostatic sprayers are growing to Increase the utilization rate of pesticides, reduce pesticide residues, real-time, cost-saving, high compatibility of plant protection products application. These technologies are under the “umbrella” of precision agriculture. The mechanized spraying system, usually implemented by highly precise equipment or mobile robots, which, makes possible the selective targeting of pesticide application on desire time and place. These advanced spraying technologies not only reduces the labour cost but also effective in environmental protection. Researchers are conducting experimental studies on the design, development and testing of precision spraying technologies for crops and orchards.

Part of the book: Technology in Agriculture

By Hafiz M. Asfahan, Muhammad Sultan, Fiaz Ahmad, Faizan Majeed, Md Shamim Ahamed, Marjan Aziz, Redmond R. Shamshiri, Uzair Sajjad, Muhammad Usman Khan and Muhammad Farooq

The present study aims to investigate the prospects and challenges that need to be encountered for the adaptation of the novel agrovoltaic irrigation system (AVIS) in Pakistan. The agro-production scenario in Pakistan is periodically declining and leading toward the high delta crops, which develop severe pressure on the conventional energy and water resources. Groundwater might be a viable water source, but its pumping requires massive energy. In addition, excessive pumping declines the water table at a higher pace as compared to the recharge rate hence leading the country toward the exploitation of the valuable reservoir. The AVIS could be an energy-efficient and reliable irrigation solution in a manner of harvesting solar energy for driving smart irrigation systems capable to pumps the metered groundwater according to field requirements. Lack of local understanding, skilled/technical personnel, dependence on local technology, and major capital expenditures might impede technological adaption. The government should take necessary measures to replenish the groundwater reservoirs and also execute research projects that strengthen ground knowledge of AVIS.

Part of the book: Irrigation and Drainage

By Fiaz Ahmad, Aftab Khaliq, Ding Qishuo and Muhammad Sultan

Increasing demand of agricultural production for human, animal, and industrial requirements is responsible for the enhancement of agricultural and agro-industrial activities. Each step of such activities produces various types of agricultural waste that include crop residue, on-farm livestock and fisheries waste, forest waste, agro-industrial waste, etc. Currently, handling and managing agricultural waste is a challenging task worldwide, especially in the context of environmental pollution control and sustainable agriculture. Thus, efficient management in terms of reuse, recycling, and reduction of agricultural waste is needed not only for the sustainable agriculture but also for farmers’ profitability. Various type of farm machinery is available and are in use to collect the crop residue from the field or directly incorporate the residue into the soil. The incorporated crop residue not only increases the soil fertility but also decreases the greenhouse gases emission due to burning of the crop residue. The crop residue chopper can be a solution of residue management at farmer field level. This chapter provides a review on the crop residue collection handing and incorporation machinery performance and their advancement.

Part of the book: Agricultural Waste

By Muhammad Aleem, Muhammad Sultan, Muhammad Imran, Zafar A. Khan, Hadeed Ashraf, Hafiz M. Asfahan and Fiaz Ahmad

In the context of food-energy-water nexus and uncertainties in climate change, hybrid energy powered smart irrigation system (HEPSIS) is an emerging solution for optimizing both energy and water to boost crop yield. In Pakistan, most of the farmers especially smallholder farmers are currently relying on conventional irrigation practices which result in high water consumptions, high energy consumptions (by means of pumping), low crop yields, and net profit. Prior to design/development, installation, and testing of the HEPSIS, it is essential to know a suitable site and potential food/cash crops which will be irrigated. In this regard, the study aims to select installation site and potential crops. Site suitability is explored for Sindh province from viewpoints of Indus Basin Irrigation System mapping, groundwater table depth/quality mapping, land use land cover, and soil classifications. Furthermore, crop selection analyses are performed by means of a screening matrix approach based on stars to identify two potential food and cash crops. As per the results, Badin, Ghotki, Khairpur, Sanghar, Shikarpur, Larkana, and Thatta are selected as some suitable sites for the proposed HEPSIS. Additionally, wheat and rice are selected as potential food crops whereas cotton and sugarcane are selected as potential cash crops.

Part of the book: Irrigation Systems and Applications

By Nadia Riaz, Muhammad Sultan, Hadeed Ashraf, Muhammad Hamid Mahmood, Fiaz Ahmad, Muhammad Usman Khan, Muhammad Farooq, Uzair Sajjad, Muhammad Wakil Shahzad and Zhaoli Zhang

Evaporative cooling systems have evolved as highly effective greenhouse-control solutions, particularly in hot and dry places such as Multan, Pakistan. This chapter evaluates the performance of direct (DEC) and indirect evaporative cooling systems (IEC) for an asymmetric greenhouse using TRNSYS software. The performance of the systems was assessed in terms of simulated ideal vapor pressure deficit (VPD), temperature, and humidity for tomato cultivation. According to the results, the DEC system effectively reduced the temperature, while the IEC system effectively managed the humidity. The DEC system showed maximum energy saving of up to 40% in hot and dry months. The combination of both DEC and IEC systems produced the optimum level of temperature and humidity for increased tomato output, energy savings, and water usage efficiency. A higher (up to 0.35 kg/h) evapotranspiration mass flow rate was observed in the middle of the year in the case of the second and fourth system configurations. Findings from this study highlight the need for sustainable, energy-efficient cooling methods for greenhouse agriculture.

Part of the book: Air Conditioning Technologies and Applications