AQUA4D: Achieving a Quadruple Bottom Line for Smart Irrigation

Written by Tatiana de Liedekerke

Introduction:

Each year, the month of July is the Irrigation Association‘s showcase for the best solutions and best practices that meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. This “Smart Irrigation Month”, we shine a light on what we do at AQUA4D® to not only combat water scarcity but also create shared value for people and the planet. 

For many years, the model of the Triple Bottom Line was used to determine the profitability of a company beyond just financial returns, taking into account the environmental and social implications of their actions. Increasingly, however, it is argued that this model is not far-reaching enough and that organizations should also have a strong sense of direction that drives them forward. In short, there was a crucial “P” missing from the famous 3Ps: Purpose. As observed recently by TheImpactInvestor.com, many companies forget to ask “Why am I doing this in the first place?”

To this end, we at AQUA4D want to reflect on the social, economic, and environmental benefits of our water-smart irrigation technology, and our guiding purpose: enabling sustainable transitions, resource conservation and land restoration through our innovation.

In doing so, we are showing others that it’s possible to successfully pursue a new Quadruple Bottom Line for irrigated agriculture.

Shared Value Plan:

Our new vision of Shared Value goes beyond fulfilling 11 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. These SDGs are very helpful in giving us specific and measurable targets, but in a sense belong to a previous dichotomy of sustainability vs profitability. Businesses should not have to sacrifice financial returns in favor of doing good. Our concept of Shared Value demonstrates that focusing on environmental and social impact can simultaneously be profitable. As Solar Impulse’s Bertrand Piccard is fond of saying, we can “address environmental challenges without compromising economic growth.”

Let’s look at how AQUA4D® achieves this.

Our social, environmental and financial benefits:

Solving salinity, restoring lands:

Soil salinization is one of the most pressing problems in agriculture, affecting crop quality, productivity and agricultural output. Coupled with a growing population, this places further strains on food security.

AQUA4D® helps manage salinity in the soil and irrigation water by leaching salts below the root areas. This prevents salts from crystallizing around the roots, thereby avoiding root burn. For an avocado grower in Peru, AQUA4D® was able to significantly decrease the electroconductivity of the soil at different depths. This was hugely important for the farmer, who did not need to rethink their whole production based on the salinity tolerance levels of their crops. Find out how this process works:

Enabling water savings:

AQUA4D® enables average water savings of up to 25% – and sometimes even up to 60% when integrated with Ag 4.0 and better water management principles. By altering the physical structure of water clusters, water can penetrate more easily into pores in the soil, leading to better water retention and better dissolution of minerals. Thus, less water is needed to achieve the same effect and farmers do not have to irrigate their soil as often. For example, for the Clisol project in Almería, AQUA4D® was able to achieve 20% water savings through improving soil moisture and enabling more efficient water management.

Such water savings are beneficial to the bottom line of growers, since irrigation is one of the main things farmers take loans for. As groundwater resources become more scarce, pumping costs will only increase. Find out more:

Reducing fertilizer use:

Since AQUA4D® enables a better dissolution of minerals in the soil, it also increases nutrient uptake by the plant, reducing the need to use fertilizer by an average of 30%. This has a clear environmental benefit, as the overuse of chemical fertilizers is an important cause of soil degradation, and crucially of the leaching of nitrate and phosphate to contaminate waterways and groundwater.

Energy savings:

The AQUA4D® system consumes very little energy, about as much as a 10W lamp. Furthermore, it can easily be connected to solar panels, further reducing growers’ carbon footprint and energy bills. It uses significantly less energy than desalinization technologies such as Reverse Osmosis (2000-3000% less). With solar panels covering the roof of our headquarters, we are actually carbon-positive, generating more energy than we use.

Our mission for the future: sustainability through innovation

Constant R&D and innovation are some of our biggest driving forces at AQUA4D®, which we also achieve by working with universities in various countries to achieve adaptive learning.

In 2019, we received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program to develop a way of integrating our technology in pivot irrigation systems, to treat large-scale commodity crops. This will pave the way for us to bring the water-saving and cost benefits of AQUA4D® to a whole new arena of agriculture. Our mission to innovate does not end here; we are constantly on the lookout for new opportunities, and are currently also exploring the use of AQUA4D® for saving water in mining and other industries, further extending this Quadruple Bottom Line approach.

Ultimately, the path to a sustainable future is paved with clean technologies equally good for People, Planet, and Profit – driven by a Purpose.

Produced in Valais, Switzerland, AQUA4D® systems are installed in over 40 countries around the world, including several arid or semi-arid areas experiencing unprecedented water stress.