Atmospheric Parameters Variation, Reference Crop Evapotranspiration and Basil Water Requirement in Novel Integrated System of Greenhouse and Saltwater Evaporative Pond

The seawater greenhouse system is a new technology that utilizes a desalination approach using saltwater to provide fresh water production and crop growth in arid areas. By controlling the atmospheric factors, this system increases relative humidity nearly up to saturation point and the amount of evapotranspiration in these conditions greatly decreases. Despite the capabilities of this system, there are limitations, such as the eclipse of evaporator and salt collection make it difficult to operate. Therefore, in this study, a new idea under the name of "Novel Integrated System of Greenhouse and Saltwater Evaporative Pond" is proposed for the first time in which the evaporator in saltwater greenhouse system has been replaced by the saltwater evaporative pond. In this study, after implementing the pilot project of this integrated systemin in south east of Tehran, the atmospheric factors variations, reference crop evapotranspiration, plant water requirement, crop yield, and water use efficiency in basil cultivation were studied in this system. The results were compared to the results of open field as a control. Based on the obtained results, the priority impact of the open field atmospheric factors on atmospheric factors variations in integrated system were temperature, relative humidity, and sunshine parameters. According to the measured amounts of water requirements and crop yield in this study, the amount of water use efficiency in basil cultivation in the open field and greenhouse media of the proposed integrated system were 1.14 and 2.89 kg/m3, respectively.