One of the largest global contributors to rising sea levels is the water withdrawals, garnering a volume of 4 quadrillion liters annually, 72% of these withdrawals go directly to agricultural production. Therefore, this project aimed to examine the differences in water consumption in hydroponic- and traditional cultivations in order to determine if a transition into hydroponic cultivational methods could reduce the need for these withdrawals.
The study found that water savings as large as 55% could be made in hydroponic cultivation in comparison to traditional cultivation. It was concluded that water savings as large as 33% could be made without affecting the mass of the harvest in the hydroponic cultivation, which also produced 52% more mass per liter of water.
This is how I came up with the idea for this project:When we were 17 our teacher showed us a documentary on water withdrawals and hydroponics in biology class. This really inspired us to want to further indulge in the subject and so we decided to do just that by completing this project.
Programme manager ania.andersch@siwi.org +46 8 121 360 59