Policy, Technology, and Management Options for Water Conservation in the Ogallala Aquifer in Kansas, USA

Abstract

The Ogallala Aquifer underlies 45 million ha, providing water for approximately 1.9 million people and supporting the robust agriculture economy of the US Great Plains region. The Ogallala Aquifer has experienced severe depletion, particularly in the Southern Plains states. This paper presents policy innovations that promote adoption of irrigation technology, and management innovations. Innovation in Kansas water policy has had the dual effects of increasing the authority of the state to regulate water while also providing more flexibility and increasing local input to water management and regulation. Technology innovations have focused on improved timing and placement of water. Management innovations include soil water monitoring, irrigation scheduling, soil health management and drought-tolerant varieties, crops, and cropping systems. The most noted success has been in the collective action which implemented a Local Enhanced Management Area (LEMA), which demonstrated that reduced water pumping resulted in low to no groundwater depletion while maintaining net income. Even more encouraging is the fact that irrigators who have participated in the LEMA or other conservation programs have conserved even more water than their goals. Innovative policy along with creative local–state–federal and private–public partnerships are advancing irrigation technology and management. Flexibility through multi-year allocations, banking of water not used in a given year, and shifting water across multiple water rights or uses on a farm are promising avenues to engage irrigators toward more sustainable irrigation in the Ogallala region.

Temporal trends in agricultural water use and the relationships to hydroclimatic factors in the High Plains aquifer region

“…A meta‐analysis on the irrigation systems between 1990 and 2016 in the Texas High Plains indicated that furrow, center pivot, and subsurface drip irrigation systems increased water use efficiency by 14%, 99%, and 147%, respectively, relative to drylands (Mitchell‐McCallister et al, 2020). In addition, many other innovations in irrigation technology and management have been applied to the agriculture in the region in the past two decades, including scheduling irrigation, planting drought tolerant crop varieties, and deficit irrigation applications with monitoring ET, soil moisture, and plant stress (Evett et al, 2020; Rudnick et al, 2019; Smidt et al, 2016; Sophocleous, 2010; Steiner et al, 2021; Stove & Buchanan, 2017).…”

“…The eight states of the High Plains take different approaches to the development and management of the water resources based on each state's water laws that abide by different legal doctrines, thus causing substantial differences in regional water management efforts (Ifft et al, 2018; Sophocleous, 2010; Steiner et al, 2021). The intensive irrigation development in Nebraska led lawmakers to put regulations in place to prevent the over‐appropriation of both surface and groundwater since 1972.…”

“…Overall, the basic water allocation rules in the eight HPA states include prior appropriation, capture, reasonable use, and correlative rights, but localized management rules are implemented particularly by water conservation districts (Steiner et al, 2021). Various policies for sustainable water use have been enacted to slow down the extraction of surface water and groundwater.…”

Estimating irrigation water use from remotely sensed evapotranspiration data: Accuracy and uncertainties across spatial scales

“…To date, the SD-6 LEMA exceeded the original conservation goals and reduced irrigationwater withdrawals by 26-31% (Deines, Kendall, Butler, et al, 2019;Drysdale & Hendricks, 2018) and slowed water table decline rates (Butler et al, 2020;Whittemore et al, 2023) with only minor negative impacts on yield and none on profitability (Golden, 2018). As such, the SD-6 LEMA is a successful example of irrigator-driven groundwater conservation (Marston, Zipper, et al, 2022) and has motivated the development of additional conservation approaches around the state (Steiner et al, 2021).…”

Envisioning a sustainable agricultural water future across spatial scales

“…Ensuring sustainability across spatial scales is necessary to avoid disproportionate impacts outside of the local watershed. In some regions, water systems may require time to recover, particularly in those regions with significant groundwater depletion (Basso et al 2013, Steiner et al 2021 or legacy pollution (Basu et al 2022). A balance will have to be struck, as current users should not be unduly penalized for past actions.…”