The socio-economic development of a country is highly dependent on water availability. Nowadays, increasing water scarcity is a major global challenge. Continuing improvements in water-use efficiency are essential for cotton production sustainability. Reduced irrigation in cotton could be a solution to water shortage in the arid climate without compromising the cotton yield. Therefore, a two-year field study was conducted to assess the effect of two levels of irrigation i.e., 50% and 100% of available water content (AWC) on the yield of four cotton genotypes (CIM-678, CIM-343, CRIS-613, and CYTO-510). The maximum seed cotton yield was observed in CIM-678, which was 2.31 and 2.46 Mg ha−1 under 100% AWC during 2018 and 2019, respectively, and was non-significantly reduced by 7.7 and 8.94%, owing to deficit irrigation. The maximum water use efficiency (WUE) of 0.55 and 0.64 Kg ha−1 mm−1 was observed under 50% AWC in CIM-678, which was significantly higher than WUE at 100% AWC during both years. Leaf area index and physiological parameters such as photosynthesis rate, transpiration rate, and stomatal conductance were not significantly affected by deficit irrigation. So, it was concluded that the reduced irrigation technique performed well without significant yield loss, improve WUE, and saved 37 cm of water that could be used for other crops or to increase the area of the cotton crop.

Arsenic (As) in drinking water has a chronic effect on humans and thus is a global health issue. Mostly people of Pakistan use groundwater for drinking, consequently prone to As toxicity. The objective of this study was to evaluate laterite as an adsorbent media for As removal, and subsequent preparation of a low-cost As filter. Laterite was tested for As adsorption capacity through batch sorption experiment and fitting Langmuir model. Two identical filters were prepared using a variable particle size of laterite and substrate material ratios (sand, activated carbon, and brick chips). Arsenic contaminated water was poured daily and collected at the bottom for analysis. The water samples were analyzed for As using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer coupled with hydride generation assembly. Other water quality parameters viz., electrical conductivity (EC), pH, chloride (Cl), total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved salts (TDS), nitrate (NO-3), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), potassium (K), carbonate (CO-3), bicarbonate (HCO-3), and sulfate (SO-4) were also tested. Filter1 had an As removal efficiency of about 83 to 93 % while Filter 2 had about 67 to 85 %. Most of the water quality parameters remained under the WHO recommended limits indicating no harmful addition to the filtered water by substrates. It appears that laterite may serve as an economical option for As removal from contaminated groundwater.

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