The effects of irrigation methods on some of soil and plant microbial indices using treated municipal wastewater

Shortage of irrigation water is a crucial problemin arid and semi-arid regions. Therefore, application ofwastewater in such area seems to be an indispensable solution.The health aspect of the application should beconsidered by microbial evaluation of soil and plant irrigatedwith treated wastewater. In this study several irrigationmethods were used. Results showed that thefiltration reduced the microbial pollution of treated municipalwastewater. The maximum soil pollution was in thesurface drip and furrow irrigation with treated municipalwastewater. The least level of total and fecal coliform werein sub-surface drip irrigation at the depth of 30 cm incondition of municipal wastewater reuse. The results ofplants revealed that the highest coliforms were seen at thesurface drip and furrow irrigation with treated municipalwastewater. The minimum coliforms numbers were observedin the sub-surface drip irrigation method. Therefore,the sub-surface drip irrigation can reduce the wastewaterreuse problems at soil and plant. It is the best option toavoid the contamination in landscape.