# New Protocol and Architecture for a Wastewater Treatment System Intended for Irrigation
## 1 Introduction  
As a great part of agricultural produce is intended for human consumption, the quality of the water utilized for irrigation is essential. However, water quality may be affected by many aspects such as pollution from industries, agricultural fertilizers and pesticides, and waste produced by humans. UNESCO estimates the amount of contaminated water on the planet as 12,000 km\({}^{3}\)[1]. Poorer regions of the planet are the most affected by contaminated water. Contaminated water is able to cause numerous health problems in the population. The WHO estimates the number of deaths caused by contaminated water consumption to be 842,000 [2]. Furthermore, it is estimated that there are 200,000 deaths per year due to pesticide consumption, with nearly 3 million people poisoned per year [3]. In India, 29% of the pesticide consumption is used on rice and 9% is used on vegetables. Thus, it is imperative to assure irrigation water is treated correctly so as to reduce water pollution as much as possible. Considering the repercussions of water contamination on people, it is necessary to add a treatment process in irrigation systems. Even though irrigation water may have been treated prior to distribution, the characteristics of the distribution canals may not avoid the incursion of water pollutants during water transport. There are a variety of watertreatment processes, including advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) [4], and adsorption, both organic and inorganic, among other water treatment processes [5]. Biosorption is a physical wastewater treatment that employs biomass to adsorb chemicals, metals, and other pollutants [6]. This process may employ different types of biomass such as marine algae, bacteria, fungi, peat moss, bark, and yeast and each type may present better results with different types of pollutants [7]. Agricultural waste materials are also being considered as an economic and ecologic biomass source. Agricultural waste biomass is abundant, reduces the waste generated from agriculture, and it has a low cost and high efficiency as an absorbent. Some of the already tested agricultural waste biomass absorbents are sawdust, coconut shells, rice bran, wheat bran, sugarcane bagasse, sugar beet pulp, maize corn cob, orange peels, waste tea leaves, and hazelnut shells, among other agricultural waste from different produce types [8]. The remnant of the wastewater biosorption process is treated with anaerobic digestion, dewatering, incineration, thermal drying, or pyrolysis [9]. In order to include water treatment in irrigation systems, an evaluation of the quality of the water that reaches the irrigation system must be performed before irrigation. Water quality monitoring can be performed with chemical or physical sensors. Physical sensors allow monitoring water quality in real time and do not require continuous supervision and manipulation. Thus, physical water quality monitoring sensors are suitable for remote water quality monitoring in smart irrigation systems. Physical sensors use the electromagnetic field, optical properties, and resistance variations in order to assess changes in the characteristics of the monitored environment [10]. Therefore, optical sensors can be utilized to monitor turbidity or the presence of an oil layer. Coils can be employed to determine the conductivity of the water. Moreover, image processing performed on the images obtained from cameras can be utilized to detect the presence of objects or animals. Furthermore, currently available low-cost sensors can be used to monitor water quality, with results comparable to those obtained from more expensive commercialized probes for water quality assessment. The amount of information generated from these types of sensors and smart systems applied to precision agriculture can be significantly large. Thus, data processing algorithms are necessary to analyze the data and determine the actions that the actuators must perform.