Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are highly persistent synthetic organic contaminants that can cause serious human health concerns such as obesity, liver damage, kidney cancer, hypertension, immunotoxicity and other human health issues. Integrated crop–livestock systems combine agricultural crop production with milk and/or meat production and processing. Key sources of PFAS in these systems include firefighting foams near military bases, wastewater sludge and industrial discharge. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances regularly move from soils to nearby surface water and/or groundwater because of their high mobility and persistence. Irrigating crops or managing livestock for milk and meat production using adjacent waters can be detrimental to human health. The presence of PFAS in both groundwater and milk have been reported in dairy production states (e.g., Wisconsin and New Mexico) across the United States. Although there is a limit of 70 parts per trillion of PFAS in drinking water by the U.S. EPA, there are not yet regional screening guidelines for conducting risk assessments of livestock watering as well as the soil and plant matrix. This systematic review includes (i) the sources, impacts and challenges of PFAS in integrated crop–livestock systems, (ii) safety measures and protocols for sampling soil, water and plants for determining PFAS concentration in exposed integrated crop–livestock systems and (iii) the assessment, measurement and evaluation of human health risks related to PFAS exposure.

California has unsustainable use of agricultural water and energy, as well as problems of severe drought, nitrate pollution and groundwater salinity. As the leading producer and exporter of agricultural produce in the United States, 5.6 percent of California’s energy is currently used for pumping groundwater. These problems and new regulatory policies (e.g., Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program) pressure growers to schedule, account and maintain records of water, energy and nutrients needed for crop and soil management. Growers require varying levels of decision support to integrate different irrigation strategies into farm operations. Decision support can come from the public or private sector, where there are many tradeoffs between cost, underlying science, user friendliness and overall challenges in farm integration. Thus, effective irrigation management requires clear definitions, decision support and guidelines for how to incorporate and evaluate the water–nutrient–energy nexus benefits of different practices and combinations of practices under shifting water governance. The California Energy Commission-sponsored Energy Product Evaluation Hub (Cal-EPE Hub) project has a mission of providing science-based evaluation of energy-saving technologies as a direct result of improved water management for irrigation in agriculture, including current and future irrigation decision support systems in California. This project incorporates end-user perceptions into evaluations of existing decision support tools in partnership with government, agricultural and private stakeholders. In this article, we review the policy context and science underlying the available irrigation decision support systems (IDSS), discuss the benefits/tradeoffs and report on their efficacy and ease of use for the most prevalent cropping systems in California. Finally, we identify research and knowledge-to-action gaps for incorporating irrigation decision support systems into new incentives and requirements for reporting water and energy consumption as well as salinity and nitrogen management in the state of California.