Integrating the Use of a Modified Biochar Compartment in Drip Irrigation Systems as a Water Contaminant Filter for Lower Resource Settings

Water scarcity and water contamination threaten agricultural sustainability, particularly in lower-resource settings that rely heavily on irrigation for crop production. Agriculture is the largest consumer of freshwater, and polluted water sources further limit water availability and economic growth (Ali et al., 2019). Biochar is a low-cost, environmentally sustainable material with strong potential for removing contaminants from water; however, limited research has examined its integration directly within irrigation delivery systems (Zheng, 2023). This study investigated the effect of a modified drip irrigation system containing a modular biochar sleeve on the amount of fluorescent dye in contaminated water. A small-scale drip irrigation system was constructed and tested under control (no biochar) and experimental (biochar sleeve) conditions across 30 trials. Flow rate was measured to assess system efficiency, and fluorescein absorbance was analyzed using a spectrophotometer at 490 nm (Tadesse et al., 2025). Results showed that the biochar-modified system maintained comparable flow performance to the control system, with no meaningful reduction in efficiency. Fluorescein absorbance was significantly lower in the biochar-treated samples compared to both the initial solution and control. One-way ANOVA indicated significant differences among groups with a p value of less than 0.001. Post-hoc Tukey tests confirmed that the biochar sleeve significantly reduced dye concentration, showing significance in the biochar vs. control comparison. These findings support the use of biochar-integrated drip irrigation as a cost-effective approach to improving irrigation water quality.