Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
20
result(s) for
"Water conservation High Plains (U.S.)"
Sort by:
Running out : in search of water on the High Plains
\"This book--the first ethnography of water conservation on the Great Plains--provides an account of High Plains aquifer decline through an exploration of the different ways in which heartland residents inhabit and understand the imminent depletion of groundwater. This literary ethnography offers a vividly sketched look into the lives and stories of this community, based on interviews with members of the community such as fellow farmers and state regulators, woven together with historical data, journalistic documentation, and Bessire's personal reflections of his family's lived experiences. (Five generations of the author's family have lived in the region as farmers and ranchers.)\"-- Provided by publisher [copied from hardcover record]
Book
Rebound Effects of New Irrigation Technologies: The Role of Water Rights
We study how institutions such as water rights can complement new irrigation technologies in promoting the sustainability of U.S. agriculture. Using data from the Ogallala-High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas, we find that water extraction moderately increases after adopting Low Energy Precise Application (LEPA) irrigation, and this rebound effect is in general higher for farmers with larger water rights. About half of the LEPA's rebound effects arise because adopters tend to irrigate more land and grow more water-intensive crops, with the remaining half attributable to more intensive irrigation. Farmers with greater water rights use more water, with two-thirds of the effects arising from irrigating larger land areas, and one-third of the effects attributable to more intensive irrigation. A 10% reduction of water rights will reduce water use by 5% in the long run, and if the reduction targets the majority of the water rights, which lie between 100 and 500 AF, LEPA's rebound effect decreases by 15.4%. Finally, we find that farmers have an incentive to apply a small amount of water in order to preserve their water rights, but the associated water waste is insignificant.
Journal Article
What Is the Use Value of Irrigation Water from the High Plains Aquifer?
This study provides an estimate of the gross value of irrigation water from the U.S. High Plains Aquifer. We estimate a yield function for aggregated crop biomass production, based on countylevel observations for 1960–2007. This study found that irrigation increases total biomass yield in this region by an average of 51%. We estimate the average gross annual value of irrigation as of 2007 to be $196 per acre, for a total of about $3 billion across the aquifer. We also estimate that on average across the aquifer, exposure to 24 hours of temperatures above 33°C (one degree day) reduces biomass yield by 3%, with a value in 2007 of about $10 per acre.
Journal Article
The Role of Peer Effects in Natural Resource Appropriation – The Case of Groundwater
Spatially mediated peer effects are increasingly recognized as an important driver of technology adoption. In this paper, we isolate the role of peer effects from environmental factors in the acquisition of groundwater rights for agricultural irrigation in Kansas. We find strong evidence of peer effects influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt groundwater irrigation. Using a rich dataset on groundwater rights for the period 1943–2014 and a nearest neighbor peer group definition, we find that one additional neighbor adopting groundwater for irrigation increases groundwater adoption by an average of 0.25 percentage points. We also find that the average marginal effect of one additional peer is reduced by distance and diminishes as the total number of neighbors adopting groundwater increases. Using our model estimates to simulate a counterfactual without peer effects, we find that water rights appropriation stemming from peer effects accounted for about 11 million acre-feet of extraction from the Kansas High Plains Aquifer. This amounts to about three years of typical annual extraction. Our results provide evidence that peer effects can “speed up” resource extraction and can help inform policy makers in designing exploitation control rules.
Journal Article
Fixed Effects Estimation of the Intensive and Extensive Margins of Irrigation Water Demand
Irrigation water demand is estimated using field-level panel data from Kansas over 16 years. The cost of pumping varies over time due to changes in energy prices and across space due to differences in the depth to water. Exploiting this variation allows us to estimate the demand elasticity while controlling for field-farmer and year fixed effects. Fixed effects also allow us to control for land use without an instrument or assumptions about the distribution of errors. Our estimates of water demand are used to calculate the cost of reducing irrigation water use through water pricing, irrigation cessation, and intensity-reduction programs.
Journal Article
Economic adjustments to groundwater depletion in the high plains: Do water-saving irrigation systems save water?
A common policy prescription for conserving irrigation water is to promote more efficient or \"water-saving\" irrigation technologies. We develop a risk-programing model to quantify the effect of irrigation efficiency on irrigation water use in the High Plains, taking account of irrigation timing and well capacity limits. We find that optimal irrigation does not respond monotonically to changes in efficiency, although intermediate and high-efficiency systems both result in less water use than an inefficient flood system.
Journal Article
Structural impediments to sustainable groundwater management in the High Plains Aquifer of western Kansas
Western Kansas is one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. Most agricultural production in this semi-arid region depends on the consumption of nonrenewable groundwater from the High Plains Aquifer, which will be 70 % depleted by 2070. The problem of depletion has drawn significant attention from local citizens and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels for at least 40 years, resulting in a variety of policies and institutions to manage groundwater from the aquifer as a common pool resource. Yet depletion has persisted. We explain this conundrum as an outcome of a mismatch between the scale of resource management, which has become more intensively local, and the scale of resource exchange, which has rendered the High Plains Aquifer a global common pool resource. We then explain the deeper, structural origins of the management–exchange scale mismatch. Drawing on concepts from structural human ecology theory and empirical evidence from Southwest Kansas, we show that agriculture is predicated on local metabolic rift in the hydrological cycle that is exacerbated through ecological unequal exchange with higher-income, core areas beyond the region. We conclude by highlighting two key policies that, if implemented together, may lessen the deleterious effects of these structural dynamics and thus promote a more sustainable relationship between society and environment in this region and other water-scarce regions that are net-exporters of groundwater.
Journal Article
Managing to climatology: Improving semi-arid agricultural risk management using crop models and a dense meteorological network
Without reliable seasonal climate forecasts, farmers and managers in other weather-sensitive sectors might adopt practices that are optimal for recent climate conditions. To demonstrate this principle, crop simulation models driven by a dense meteorological network were used to identify climate-optimal planting dates for US Southern High Plains (SHP) unirrigated agriculture. This method converted large samples of SHP growing season weather outcomes into climate-representative cotton and sorghum yield distributions over a range of planting dates. Best planting dates were defined as those that maximized median cotton lint (April 24) and sorghum grain (July 1) yields. Those optimal yield distributions were then converted into corresponding profit distributions reflecting 2005–19 commodity prices and fixed production costs. Both crops’ profitability under variable price conditions and current SHP climate conditions were then compared based on median profit and loss probability, and through stochastic dominance analyses that assumed a slightly risk-averse producer.
Journal Article
Ogallala, Third Edition
The Ogallala aquifer, a vast underground water reserve extending from South Dakota through Texas, is the product of eons of accumulated glacial melts, ancient Rocky Mountain snowmelts, and rainfall, all percolating slowly through gravel beds hundreds of feet thick. Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land is an environmental history and historical geography that tells the story of human defiance and human commitment within the Ogallala region. It describes the Great Plains’ natural resources, the history of settlement and dryland farming, and the remarkable irrigation technologies that have industrialized farming in the region. This newly updated third edition discusses three main issues: long-term drought and its implications, the efforts of several key groundwater management districts to regulate the aquifer, and T. Boone Pickens’s failed effort to capture water from the aquifer to supply major Texas urban areas. This edition also describes the fierce independence of Texas ranchers and farmers who reject any governmental or bureaucratic intervention in their use of water, and it updates information about the impact of climate change on the aquifer and agriculture.
eBook
PAST AND FUTURE IMPACTS OF WETLAND REGULATIONS ON PLAYA ECOLOGY IN THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS
Playa wetlands provide functions critical to the existence of life on the High Plains portion of the Great Plains, including surface drainage, aquifer recharge, and wildlife habitat. These small, circular, isolated depressional wetlands with closed watersheds have a dynamic, unpredictable hydroperiod, which is essential to the maintenance of biodiversity. Most numerous in the Southern High Plains of northwestern Texas and eastern New Mexico, playas have been impacted by sedimentation, pit excavation, road construction, industrial and municipal wastewater, feedlot runoff, urban development, overgrazing, and deliberate filling. Despite being declared, as a wetland class, jurisdictional “waters of the United States” since 1977, regulations and laws for conservation of wetland functions have seldom been applied to playas. The January 2001 Supreme Court decision, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. United States Army of Corps of Engineers, likely eliminated federal regulation of impacts covered by the Clean Water Act in all but a few playas. Although still subject to the Federal “Swampbuster” provision enacted by the 1985 Food Security Act, extended natural dry periods allows for frequent cultivation and other activities in playas without incurring violation, contributing to the continued degradation of playa functions. None of the states with significant numbers of playas have regulations for the conservation of playa functions. Suggestions for the successful future conservation of playas and their associated functions include (1) increased promotion and implementation of existing federal and state conservation programs specifically for playas; (2) proposed state regulations for playa conservation; (3) recognition of agricultural impacts on wetland determinations; (4) creation of Wetland Management Districts to preserve intact, functioning playas; and (5) increased public education on the value of playas.
Journal Article