David Steward, Paul Bruss, Xiaoying Yang, Scott Staggenborg, Stephen Welch and Michael Apley just released a special study report on the productivity of the High Plains Aquifer in Kansas over the next 100 years, or to the year 2110. Their Executive Summary says:
"Groundwater provides a reliable tap to sustain agricultural production, yet persistent aquifer depletion threatens future sustainability. The High Plains Aquifer supplies 30% of the nation’s irrigated groundwater, and the Kansas portion supports the congressional district with the highest market value for agriculture in the nation. We project groundwater declines to assess when the study area might run out of water, and comprehensively forecast the impacts of reduced pumping on corn and cattle production. So far, 30% of the groundwater has been pumped and another 39% will be depleted over the next 50 y given existing trends. Recharge supplies 15% of current pumping and would take an average of 500–1,300 y to completely refill a depleted aquifer. Significant declines in the region’s pumping rates will occur over the next 15–20 y given current trends, yet irrigated agricultural production might increase through 2040 because of projected increases in water use efficiencies in corn production. Water use reductions of 20% today would cut agricultural production to the levels of 15–20 y ago, the time of peak agricultural production would extend to the 2070s, and production beyond 2070 would significantly exceed that projected without reduced pumping... Findings substantiate that saving more water today would result in increased net production due to projected future increases in crop water use efficiencies."
This 4-year study can be found within the National Academy of Sciences website, and was financially supported by the National Science Foundation, USDA Agricultural Research Service and US Department of Transportation through the Kansas State University Transportation Center. It has made quite a splash. Within just a few days we have been contacted by National Public Radio (Washington, DC), the Kansas City Star (Kansas City), Matter Magazine (California?) the Farm Futures Magazine (Chicago) and several of our GMD members - and we're not even specifically mentioned in the study, although the SD-6 LEMA is.
Anyway, the interesting thing about this study is its conclusion that local folks can make significant economic impacts by taking positive steps now to reduce current water use which will make the same water available later when production and returns are considerably higher. Any thoughts?
Showing posts with label irrigation water use. Show all posts
Showing posts with label irrigation water use. Show all posts
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Colorado State University - AWCC
I first heard of the Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse (AWCC) website about 6-7 years ago - just as the pundits at Colorado State University were still conceiving its platform and ultimate function. They had lofty goals then when they announced they'd like to eventually capture and make available all the irrigation literature in the midwest that dealt with irrigation water use conservation and efficient use. I had some idea of the amount of material that was being generated on these topics by Kansas State University alone, so their goal I saw quickly would be quite enormous.
I see today, as I visited the site again, that they have expanded their focus worldwide - now encompassing many different climate regions, technologies, political and legal systems, etc., etc. Impressive!
One thing I noticed on their website was the following, completely unqualified, comment on Ag Water Conservation:
What is Ag Water Conservation?
Anyway, I'll check back in on the site a while later. Maybe there'll be more information as to this listing. And I wish them all the luck in the world in capturing the universe of ag water conservation materials.
I see today, as I visited the site again, that they have expanded their focus worldwide - now encompassing many different climate regions, technologies, political and legal systems, etc., etc. Impressive!
One thing I noticed on their website was the following, completely unqualified, comment on Ag Water Conservation:
What is Ag Water Conservation?
- Increased crop water use efficiency
- Improved irrigation application efficiency
- Increased capture and utilization of precipitation
- Decreased crop consumptive use
- Increased irrigation water diversion and delivery efficiencies
- Reduced water use through adoption of conservation measures and new technologies for water management
Anyway, I'll check back in on the site a while later. Maybe there'll be more information as to this listing. And I wish them all the luck in the world in capturing the universe of ag water conservation materials.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Can Flexibility Be Had Without Increasing Water Use?
Dilemma - Kansas irrigators are asking for multi-year flexibility under their annual water rights for various reasons. They say it will help them make more efficient use of the water they pump, and provide an answer to staying within their legal rights in our state's exceptionally variable weather regime. Is there a way to provide such flexibility without resulting in any increase in water use?
With an annual water right an irrigator might have 100 AF of water as his or her annual appropriation. The way it was perfected means that the 100 AF would normally include enough water to cover a dry year, and as such, it would never be legally allowed to exceed 100 AF of use. In a dry year they would likely use all of it, but in the average and wet years they would use less - say 75% in an average year and 50% in a wet year. Under this arrangement, and never knowing beforehand if it was going to be dry, wet or average, water use would end up being 75% of the 3-year cumulative appropriation (225 AF) if it was an average 3-year pattern (one wet year, one dry and one average - in any order). Since there would be an equal chance of having any combination of years (3 wet years in a row (resulting in 50% total use) or 3 dry years in a row (resulting is 100% use) or any other combination) it makes sense to me that over the long haul, the averages will hold true.
However, if you allow an irrigator to use 300 AF over every 3-year period, could they more consistently use their full 200 AF cumulative use in the first 2 years - regardless of the weather - and then play the averages in the third year? The math says that if the third year was wet, the irrigator would use 250 AF cumulative; if it were average, they'd use 275 AF and if it was dry they'd use all 300 AF. In every case you'll note they use more than the 225 AF they would have used under the annual water use system. This begs for some kind of AF stipend from the irrigator for the ability to have the added flexibility (flexibility translated to: management opportunity to maximize water use). But what is a fair arrangement that will allow flexibility, but not increase water use?
Some systems I've looked at also provide for "borrowing" from or "carrying over" to the next 3-year allocation period. While providing yet more flexibility, this arrangement also provides that much more management opportunity to maximize water use. Maybe it's not that big of an issue. While some increase in water use is possible with a multi-year appropriation, it's not all that alarming and the increased use is capped - meaning that once it starts occurring, it never gets any bigger. But it does occur every 3 years. Should we just chalk the likely increase up to the cost of doing business and take the extra production?
In Kansas we also have peripheral issues - the most pressing being possible impairment if we allow essentially uncontrolled annual pumpage. Our well spacing systems were mostly designed on annual maximum pumpage quantities so as to have a known impact on all surrounding wells. Allowing any additional annual pumpage could theoretically pose short term supply problems between wells.
I'd be interested if anyone else has addressed this issue, how they have done it, and how satisfied they are with their approach. Kansas will be thinking about this pretty seriously over the next 6-months or so. We're always looking for ideas.
With an annual water right an irrigator might have 100 AF of water as his or her annual appropriation. The way it was perfected means that the 100 AF would normally include enough water to cover a dry year, and as such, it would never be legally allowed to exceed 100 AF of use. In a dry year they would likely use all of it, but in the average and wet years they would use less - say 75% in an average year and 50% in a wet year. Under this arrangement, and never knowing beforehand if it was going to be dry, wet or average, water use would end up being 75% of the 3-year cumulative appropriation (225 AF) if it was an average 3-year pattern (one wet year, one dry and one average - in any order). Since there would be an equal chance of having any combination of years (3 wet years in a row (resulting in 50% total use) or 3 dry years in a row (resulting is 100% use) or any other combination) it makes sense to me that over the long haul, the averages will hold true.
However, if you allow an irrigator to use 300 AF over every 3-year period, could they more consistently use their full 200 AF cumulative use in the first 2 years - regardless of the weather - and then play the averages in the third year? The math says that if the third year was wet, the irrigator would use 250 AF cumulative; if it were average, they'd use 275 AF and if it was dry they'd use all 300 AF. In every case you'll note they use more than the 225 AF they would have used under the annual water use system. This begs for some kind of AF stipend from the irrigator for the ability to have the added flexibility (flexibility translated to: management opportunity to maximize water use). But what is a fair arrangement that will allow flexibility, but not increase water use?
Some systems I've looked at also provide for "borrowing" from or "carrying over" to the next 3-year allocation period. While providing yet more flexibility, this arrangement also provides that much more management opportunity to maximize water use. Maybe it's not that big of an issue. While some increase in water use is possible with a multi-year appropriation, it's not all that alarming and the increased use is capped - meaning that once it starts occurring, it never gets any bigger. But it does occur every 3 years. Should we just chalk the likely increase up to the cost of doing business and take the extra production?
In Kansas we also have peripheral issues - the most pressing being possible impairment if we allow essentially uncontrolled annual pumpage. Our well spacing systems were mostly designed on annual maximum pumpage quantities so as to have a known impact on all surrounding wells. Allowing any additional annual pumpage could theoretically pose short term supply problems between wells.
I'd be interested if anyone else has addressed this issue, how they have done it, and how satisfied they are with their approach. Kansas will be thinking about this pretty seriously over the next 6-months or so. We're always looking for ideas.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
GMD 4 Rain - Pumping - Water Table Relationship
I continue to be struck by the simplicity of the water use patterns inside our groundwater management district. The graph included (click on it to enlarge) shows 3 graphed data sets from roughly 1980 through 2002 - average in-season rainfall; reported groundwater pumped; and water level change. (We used only the data from the late 1980s forward for reported water use - when our reporting process was enhanced significantly.)One of these days I'm going to update this graph because it's so instructional. You should note also the three trend lines included on the graph. While the in-season rainfall and the water level change trend lines are relatively flat, the reported pumped water trend line is decidedly downsloping.
Why, you ask, should the water level change line NOT be upward sloping if less water is getting pumped? It's because consumptive use drives the water level changes. While pumped water is actually declining due largely to irrigation efficiency improvements, the consumptive use of the reduced water pumped has held more or less steady. To affect the water level change trend line, we need to reduce consumptive water use - or, make it rain more.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Would it Work?
I think there are several ways to define or achieve "sustainable" groundwater use here in NW Kansas. You have to pick your poison, though, because they all entail using less water than we are today. One intriguing approach involves the possibility of irrigating virtually every acre of the district to a lesser degree, rather than the 15% of the district we now irrigate fully.
The idea is based on limiting irrigations to match the long-term annual recharge rates - to assure an average dryland production rate every year, for whatever crop is grown. In theory, we should achieve long term sustainability if we can do so. For example, if it rains an average of 18 inches per year in Thomas County, and this precipitation regime produces a long term average dryland production of 60 bushels per acre of corn, how would we fair if every acre in the County was irrigated every year for the 60-bushel corn production level? When it rains 18 inches or more, no irrigation would be required or allowed. When it rains less, every acre could be irrigated only for the 60 bushel production target.
Another way to say this would be irrigation only as a supplement to average dryland production rates - be it wheat, corn, sorghum, beans or whatever. I wonder how a 60 bushel per acre corn production history on every crop acre, forever, would compare socially and economically to the 225 bushel per acre production levels we're now achieving on 12% of the acres - while the declining groundwater table continues to promise us an eventual end to this practice? I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the long term economic outlook is positive, but I'm not sure how the current economy would respond. Cratering our current economic base to achieve any long term sustainable goal is always going to be problematic.
I'm sure there are a few things that would need to be factored in - like the very limited non-irrigation water use we have here (less than 2.5% of the total); the fact that crop production is not linear in it's regard to water use; the fact that annual rainfall is not known until after the crop year; and a few other things, but, these could be compensated for by either reducing the irrigated acres, or the crop production targets to some degree.
Such an approach would absolutely guarantee that the highest percentage possible of average annual precip would go toward crop production. Natural recharge would essentially cease, but with vitually no groundwater use coming out, the water table should stabilize over the long term (it'd still fluctuate a little bit in response to mid-term drought or wet cycles). With no surface water issues to be held accountable for, this situation could actually become an economic and hydrologic advantage.
I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on these ideas. GMD 4 is NOT promoting this concept, but it'd be nice to know if it could ever be an option or not.
The idea is based on limiting irrigations to match the long-term annual recharge rates - to assure an average dryland production rate every year, for whatever crop is grown. In theory, we should achieve long term sustainability if we can do so. For example, if it rains an average of 18 inches per year in Thomas County, and this precipitation regime produces a long term average dryland production of 60 bushels per acre of corn, how would we fair if every acre in the County was irrigated every year for the 60-bushel corn production level? When it rains 18 inches or more, no irrigation would be required or allowed. When it rains less, every acre could be irrigated only for the 60 bushel production target.
Another way to say this would be irrigation only as a supplement to average dryland production rates - be it wheat, corn, sorghum, beans or whatever. I wonder how a 60 bushel per acre corn production history on every crop acre, forever, would compare socially and economically to the 225 bushel per acre production levels we're now achieving on 12% of the acres - while the declining groundwater table continues to promise us an eventual end to this practice? I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the long term economic outlook is positive, but I'm not sure how the current economy would respond. Cratering our current economic base to achieve any long term sustainable goal is always going to be problematic.
I'm sure there are a few things that would need to be factored in - like the very limited non-irrigation water use we have here (less than 2.5% of the total); the fact that crop production is not linear in it's regard to water use; the fact that annual rainfall is not known until after the crop year; and a few other things, but, these could be compensated for by either reducing the irrigated acres, or the crop production targets to some degree.
Such an approach would absolutely guarantee that the highest percentage possible of average annual precip would go toward crop production. Natural recharge would essentially cease, but with vitually no groundwater use coming out, the water table should stabilize over the long term (it'd still fluctuate a little bit in response to mid-term drought or wet cycles). With no surface water issues to be held accountable for, this situation could actually become an economic and hydrologic advantage.
I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on these ideas. GMD 4 is NOT promoting this concept, but it'd be nice to know if it could ever be an option or not.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Water Use Report
Recently the USGS released a report on water use in the U.S. The press picked the headline: "U.S. Uses Less Water Today". The report is actually using 2005 data and comparing it to data in previous 5-year blocks of time.From one of the press releases: "The report concludes...even though the amount of irrigated acres has increased, irrigation application rates have steadily decreased - a change that the report's authors attribute to the increased use of more efficient irrigation systems."
And
"We are pleased to see that irrigation efficiency played such a major role in decreasing our nation's overall water use" (John Farner, Irrigation Association).
Inside the actual report we find recognition that irrigated acres have been increasing. And inside the guidelines for the preparation of the 2005 report we find the statements: "Irrigation withdrawals include conveyance losses." and "Data for the optional elements...will not be part of the national water-use analysis for 2005..." and in the mandatory elements we find "Ground-water total withdrawals.. [including conveyance losses]" and in the optional elements we find "consumptive use, by county" [not part of the report].
What seems to be really happening in this report is that the conveyance losses are being reported as use and the consumptive uses are being ignored. Sure, irrigation efficiency will reduce conveyance losses, thus appearing to "use less water", but the real question is what's happening to the amount of actual consumptive water use? This is the vital number that relates to long term supply and the health of any hydrologic system.
My guess is that while pumped (diverted) water is actually less, the application of the less water on more acres is likely to result in increased consumptive water use. Yes, you get more production from each unit of water as efficiency increases, which is a good thing, but you don't consume (use) less water.
I think this is the wrong message to be sending and it leads to more money and effort put to irrigation efficiency (in the name of water conservation) in areas where reducing consumptive water use is most important. This is one reason why water management continues to be so difficult.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Micro-Irrigation Blitz Coming?
I've been following a micro-irrigation list serve (discussion group) for maybe 3 years now. It has been personally organized and run by a person in academia and has been focused soley on the technology and science of micro irrigation - promoting all the positives as well as seeking solutions for all the not so positives. A ton of fair, honest and unfettered discussion has been had since I've joined. But alas, due to personal reasons the group inventor is stepping down and after few offers to take over the discussion group, he is allowing Toro Micro, a commercial company that develops and sells SDI equipment, to assume the helm. And was I ever surprised at the very first "new regime" post. Tom, representing an engineering and design company promoting, selling and installing smart irrigation systems for business and agriculture (SDI elements included) says (paraphrasing): "let me be among the first to begin a new thread". He goes on:
This year, I have attended a few conferences (Park City, UT, and Las Vegas), as well as attended NRCS State Technical Advisory Committee meetings. A couple of presentations were shaded with tones of non-denial that agriculture holds the most potential for really dramatic water and energy optimizations and risk/uncertainty reductions, affecting the nation as a whole. I would like to report that bold and unified action plans are being developed to boldly transition irrigated agriculture in the West to precision irrigation/fertigation.Who can't see where this group is headed? Those who feel that new irrigation technology needs to hold up a minute until government can place appropriate controls on the conversions to ensure no increases of consumptive water use will need to catch their collective breaths - or start monitoring this discussion and demanding some collaboration.
But what good is all our enlightened chats if the majority of producers ONLY wish to irrigate and fertilize like their pappy did back in the 1950’s, no rank belittlement intended? Do we need a T. Roosevelt to get irrigation districts, and their stockholders, and the Fed., as well as serious, national agribusiness contributions to rally and unite, towards wide-scale, pressurized network infrastructure and on-farm sensor-based, adaptive management automation….across virtually all of the 17 western states?
Converting all irrigation water use to higher application efficiencies and then addressing the water supply problem is a huge mistake. All the capitalization makes subsequent management more difficult than it already is. The capped water supply issues need to be addressed first, then the conversions. Yes, the order of implementation does make a difference. Oh well, just another day in the water management business.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
God Forbid California Should Look Elsewhere for Direction
Sometimes I just don't get it. An inordinately large amount of the water news over the past several months has been on the California situation. A lot of the criticism has been over the lack of water monitoring and measurement (metering) especially groundwater by agriculture - the group that uses most of the state's water. It's like no one else in the world has any water problems quite as large, or complex and pressing, or, has any solutions that California would remotely be interested in.For the Californians in the audience, I'd like to offer that Kansas has been monitoring water use since the mid 1970s, took significant strides to improve that monitoring in the late 1980s, and began metering all non-domestic wells in selected areas in the late 1990s. Today, Kansas has some of the best (most complete and accurate) water use reporting - especially for irrigation and municipal water use - in the country. Review some of these reports at your leisure KWO Water Use Reports and assess for yourself how useful this data might be for yourself. And the data itself is also available to the public on a website maintained by the Kansas Geological Survey - WIMAS. This data on water rights and reported water use is uploaded every day from the Division of Water Resources. And finally, KGS also maintains the obervation well network on about 1,700 water level measurements taken each year in Kansas (KS Water Level Data). And Kansas likely is not the only western state that has been monitoring its water resources and use.
Having been through most of Kansas' program development, I'll admit that it was not always that easy and wasn't particularly popular with the water users, but now that it's been done, most everyone recognizes the benefits and appreciates the fairness of it all. The most common comment I get now is: "Why didn't we do this 25 years ago?" I guess it's none of my business what California chooses to do or not do, so I'll just sit back and watch as they continue to argue over what probably is the most important thing they could possibly do with regard to their water resource and its allocation, management and conservation. Should eventually keep the water lawyers very busy, though.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Water Rights Conservation Program
Somewhere around the late-1970's as the water supplies became fully developed, Kansas consciously began the transition of its water law interpretation from "development" oriented, to a "water management" orientation. The laws weren't actually changing much, but their interpretations were - and I think rightfully so.
One of the knottier issues in this change was the "use it or lose it" mindset. Under development mode, those not using the water needed to give way to others who wanted to use it so that maximum economic benefit could be achieved right up to the moment of fully appropriating all the water supplies. By the process of forfeiting non-used water rights for maximum economic gain, non-used water rights were disadvantaged - some say penalized.
However, in the new, management phase of water, non-use needed to be rewarded rather than disadvantged - especially in areas that were over-appropriated and no one else could be given the water to use if it was forfeited. The common perception was that owners were using the water simply to keep their water rights intact. If this were true, where is the conservation ethic in this system? This is where the Kansas Water Rights Conservation Program (WRCP) came into existence.
WRCP allowed water rights in over-appropriated areas to be set aside for 5 to 10 years for conservation, and to re-enroll for another 5 to 10 years afterwards. Each of these years was then considered "due and sufficient cause" for non-use (enrolled in a government program for conservation) so the water right could not be forfeited for non-use. This allowed water right owners the choice of not using their water while retaining ownership - but only in over-appropriated areas. Today, there are 977 water rights in this program statewide, not using 260,000 acrefeet of appropriated water.
Due to budget cuts, the state is poised to end WRCP, which by the way is not a statutorily mandated effort, but was crafted in this new, management-oriented interpretation period by regulation. I don't know how many of the people enrolled will start using their water again as they come out of their current contracts, but I suspect most will rather than face abandoning and forfeiting these property rights. This decision simply appears to me to be "penny wise and pound foolish" as the colonials would say, and certain to make water management a bit harder as we move on from here.
I think the state may also be concerned about keeping all the WRCP water rights "on the books" for the next few decades as this will pose other water management problems for a later time. But these later problems I think will be less-knotty then than the problems related to eliminating WRCP are going to be now.
One of the knottier issues in this change was the "use it or lose it" mindset. Under development mode, those not using the water needed to give way to others who wanted to use it so that maximum economic benefit could be achieved right up to the moment of fully appropriating all the water supplies. By the process of forfeiting non-used water rights for maximum economic gain, non-used water rights were disadvantaged - some say penalized.
However, in the new, management phase of water, non-use needed to be rewarded rather than disadvantged - especially in areas that were over-appropriated and no one else could be given the water to use if it was forfeited. The common perception was that owners were using the water simply to keep their water rights intact. If this were true, where is the conservation ethic in this system? This is where the Kansas Water Rights Conservation Program (WRCP) came into existence.
WRCP allowed water rights in over-appropriated areas to be set aside for 5 to 10 years for conservation, and to re-enroll for another 5 to 10 years afterwards. Each of these years was then considered "due and sufficient cause" for non-use (enrolled in a government program for conservation) so the water right could not be forfeited for non-use. This allowed water right owners the choice of not using their water while retaining ownership - but only in over-appropriated areas. Today, there are 977 water rights in this program statewide, not using 260,000 acrefeet of appropriated water.
Due to budget cuts, the state is poised to end WRCP, which by the way is not a statutorily mandated effort, but was crafted in this new, management-oriented interpretation period by regulation. I don't know how many of the people enrolled will start using their water again as they come out of their current contracts, but I suspect most will rather than face abandoning and forfeiting these property rights. This decision simply appears to me to be "penny wise and pound foolish" as the colonials would say, and certain to make water management a bit harder as we move on from here.
I think the state may also be concerned about keeping all the WRCP water rights "on the books" for the next few decades as this will pose other water management problems for a later time. But these later problems I think will be less-knotty then than the problems related to eliminating WRCP are going to be now.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Can't Help But Shake My Head!
Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute has been defending irrigation efficiency improvements as a significant part of the water supply crisis of CA. Just today he Blogged:
Pfeiffer & Lin (University of California, Davis); Samani and Skaggs (New Mexico State University); Amosson & Almos & Golden (Ogallala Aquifer Initiative); Kendy (Montana Hydrogelologist); Bredehoeft (1997); and others have all come to the same conclusion - increased water use efficiency increases consumptive water use. It's not the technology that makes this happen, but the inability of the water managers to recognize it and compensate appropriately. Of course any mandated reduction in irrigated areas, or mandatory cropping restrictions, or irrigation scheduling needed to offset the reduced recharge and higher CU will have economic, social and legal consequences, but these are easy to get by, right? Probably NOT. Anyway, I hope we don't pin our future water supply hopes too much on improved irrigation technology until we're sure of the sacrifices needed to accomplish it.
Two separate companies that manufacture state-of-the-art irrigation efficiency technology have approached me and lamented the difficulty of working in California, where they feel irrigation districts and farm lobbyists work to hinder efforts to improve efficiency, rather than help farmers seeking to improve water use.I agree with these folks most of the time, but on this issue I really believe they are not right. There are too many reports, models and studies out there that conclude the exact opposite - an increase of consumptive water use upon the adoption of such technology.
Pfeiffer & Lin (University of California, Davis); Samani and Skaggs (New Mexico State University); Amosson & Almos & Golden (Ogallala Aquifer Initiative); Kendy (Montana Hydrogelologist); Bredehoeft (1997); and others have all come to the same conclusion - increased water use efficiency increases consumptive water use. It's not the technology that makes this happen, but the inability of the water managers to recognize it and compensate appropriately. Of course any mandated reduction in irrigated areas, or mandatory cropping restrictions, or irrigation scheduling needed to offset the reduced recharge and higher CU will have economic, social and legal consequences, but these are easy to get by, right? Probably NOT. Anyway, I hope we don't pin our future water supply hopes too much on improved irrigation technology until we're sure of the sacrifices needed to accomplish it.
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