Sustainable agriculture on a global scale is threatened by water shortage and erratic rainfall, leading to lower crop yields, poor irrigation practices, and degradation of water resources. Conventional water management practices are often ineffective in ensuring a stable water delivery and protecting the soil against flood damage alike in areas with rain‐dependent agricultural production. To address these challenges, we propose here a new multitasking water collection and management system that integrates the thermo‐voltaic atmospheric water harvesting (AWH), rainwater harvesting (RWH), and soil moisture extraction (SME) into a single device with automatic operation. The operational performance of the system was evaluated over a 6‐month deployment in a humid agricultural environment. As per the study, the combined device achieved 30%–45% more water collection efficiency than a single RWH system. The proposed system produced up to 2.0 L/h (90% RH) and reduced the irrigation water demand by 40%. The system energy usage had been kept under 1 kWh a day when operated on solar and, therefore, has a low running cost. Based on a side‐by‐side cost comparison, the system cost for producing 1 L of water was 30%–50% less than traditional methods, such as groundwater pumping or desalination. This combined device can be used in the sanitary field, irrigational water supply, and flood prevention. It represents a climate‐smart, energy‐wise, and economically viable solution toward sustainable agricultural water management in various climatic conditions.
Hoque et al. (Thu,) studied this question.