The Economics of Groundwater Management with Special Emphasis on the High Plains Region of Western Kansas PDF Download
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Author: David L. Jordening
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Author: David L. Jordening
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Author: David E. Kromm
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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In the forty years since the invention of center pivot irrigation, the Nigh Plains aquifer system has been depleted at an astonishing rate. Is the region now in danger of becoming the Great American Desert? In this volume eleven of the most knowledgeable scholars and water professionals in the Great Plains insightfully examine the dilemmas of groundwater use. They address both the technical problems and the politics of water management, providing a badly needed analysis of the implications of large-scale irrigation.
Author: Kellen Liebsch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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While Kansas, and specifically western Kansas, are known by many to be the backbone of agriculture in our nation, much of that productivity has been built on the heels of the invention and efficiency of irrigation technology. Unfortunately, recharge and replenishment of the High Plains - Ogallala Aquifer has not kept pace with the demands of agricultural production, and current indications state that without the implementation of conservation or management practices that the aquifer in Kansas could be depleted by 2060 (Steward, et al. 2013). The producers of Kansas are committed to long-term solutions to preserve their way of life, espouse their commitment to natural resources and the environment, and ensure the viability of their operations for years to come. This study analyzed the economic impact of a proposed Local Enhanced Management Area (LEMA) for Groundwater Management District (GMD) #4. While there currently is a LEMA in a portion of GMD #4 known as the Sheridan 6 LEMA, the board of GMD #4 has initiated the process to institute a district-wide LEMA that would affect a large portion of the 10-county area of the groundwater management district (Cheyenne, Rawlins, Decatur, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Graham, Wallace, Logan, and Gove Counties). To complete the analysis for the proposed policy change, multiple scenarios were derived using the IMPLAN software. The first model serves as the baseline scenario and provides status quo information on the current irrigated cropping economics of GMD #4. The second scenario assumes that a district-wide LEMA would require a 25% reduction in groundwater use, compared to current irrigation practices. To achieve this reduction in groundwater use, irrigated acreage was reduced by 25% and transitioned to dryland production. For the third and final scenario, an optimal irrigated crop-mix ratio is determined based on the current shift in production as reported by the producers in the Sheridan 6 LEMA. While this scenario does not reduce irrigated acres, it shows the economic gains that can be captured by using less water-intensive crops as part of the crop-mix ratio. The reduction in irrigation is also imbedded in that the acreage in which production is shifted away from is more water intensive towards acreage that is less water-intensive. Due to a reduction in groundwater use for irrigation, the study determined that there is a negative economic impact in relation to employment and total output in the GMD #4 area. There are 173 less individuals employed from the 25% reduction in groundwater use. Additionally, direct output is reduced by $44.6 million and total output is reduced by $60.0 million. This equates to a $194.49 reduction per acre on a per-acre basis. The study further showed that the economic impact could be lessened by the use of a crop-mix shift as evidenced in the current Sheridan 6 LEMA. The assessment of a crop-mix shift decreased the loss of direct output by $12.0 million to $265.0 million and total output by $16.5 million to $357.1 million. On a per-acre basis, this is a reduction of $140.97, or mitigation of $53.52 in loss per acre due to the use of an optimal crop-mix shift. While agricultural production is highly dependent on many factors, it can be universally agreed that the landscape of agriculture would be different if water was not an available resource. It is the hope that this research will provide a starting point for the producers of GMD #4 to have a conversation about the economic costs associated with the implementation of a LEMA, as well as discuss other options and opportunities to make educated, well-informed decisions that are impactful both now and for generations to come.
Author: Brock Ternes
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666903477
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
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The tremendous loss of groundwater has been a longstanding concern in Kansas, where areas of the High Plains aquifer have plummeted. Groundwater Citizenship: Well Owners, Environmentalism, and the Depletion of the High Plains Aquifer investigates water conservation efforts, environmental priorities, and water supply awareness among private water well owners, a key social group whose water usage is pivotal to safeguarding aquifers. This book discusses how reliance on private and public water supplies influences watering practices by asking if owning a well changes the propensity to conserve water. To explore how water supplies shape environmental actions and beliefs, sociologist Brock Ternes constructed a one-of-a-kind dataset by surveying over 850 well owners and non-well owners throughout Kansas. His analyses reveal that well ownership influences several dimensions of water consumption, and he identifies how Kansans’ notions of environmentalism are recalibrated by their systems of water provision. This book frames well owners as unique conservationists whose water use is shaped by larger structures—aquifers, water laws, and food systems. Groundwater Citizenship takes a sociological look at water systems to facilitate adaptive approaches to sustainable resource management.
Author: Lucas Bessire
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691216436
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Finalist for the National Book Award An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartland The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair. The imminent depletion of the Ogallala and other aquifers around the world is a defining planetary crisis of our times. Running Out offers a uniquely personal account of aquifer depletion and the deeper layers through which it gains meaning and force. Anthropologist Lucas Bessire journeyed back to western Kansas, where five generations of his family lived as irrigation farmers and ranchers, to try to make sense of this vital resource and its loss. His search for water across the drying High Plains brings the reader face to face with the stark realities of industrial agriculture, eroding democratic norms, and surreal interpretations of a looming disaster. Yet the destination is far from predictable, as the book seeks to move beyond the words and genres through which destruction is often known. Instead, this journey into the morass of eradication offers a series of unexpected discoveries about what it means to inherit the troubled legacies of the past and how we can take responsibility for a more inclusive, sustainable future. An urgent and unsettling meditation on environmental change, Running Out is a revelatory account of family, complicity, loss, and what it means to find your way back home.
Author: Stephen Lauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Rural communities in the U.S. High Plains rely on groundwater from the declining Ogallala aquifer. I apply the sociological concepts of social structure, culture, and agency to understand the relationships between farmers/producers and groundwater management. My mixed methods approach includes quantitative modeling of secondary data, a survey of producers across the Ogallala Aquifer region, interviews with producers in Western Kansas, and a case study of sustained civic engagement among the producers who formed the Wichita County Water Conservation Area (WCA). My model of secondary data shows no association between groundwater extraction and human development at the county level. This suggests that the benefits of groundwater extraction are not being reinvested into local human and financial capitals. My interviews with producers provide support for a treadmill of production and for reinvestment into local cultural and social capitals. Consistent with a treadmill of production, producers described how investments in irrigation infrastructure make it costly for them to conserve groundwater. They described how irrigation increases cultural and social capital through higher populations, increased community cohesion, and maintaining their way of life. My survey of producers indicates that an overwhelming majority (92%) agree that groundwater should be conserved, primarily to benefit future generations (86%), support local jobs and businesses (66%), provide insurance against drought (63%), and continue the economic viability of irrigated agriculture (60%). Most producers (72%) believe they are already doing all they can individually to conserve groundwater on their operations. Interviews with producers indicate that those who become involved voluntary group conservation efforts find additional ways to conserve. Most producers (84%) are open to the possibility that voluntary group conservation may be effective and that they might have something personally to contribute to such efforts, but few (7%) are currently involved. My interviews show that values, beliefs, and norms are important to their individual and collective groundwater management decisions. However, my model of survey data suggests that differences in producers' values, beliefs, and norms do not explain which producers are civically engaged in voluntary group conservation efforts. I argue that civic engagement is contingent, in that structural and cultural factors must align in a particular community to enable producers to choose to pursue voluntary group conservation. My interviews with producers and case study of the Wichita County WCA support this explanation. Wichita County was primed for voluntary group conservation through structural and cultural factors, including a quantity of groundwater that made conservation efforts both urgent and promising, a single town that producers value and which economically relies on groundwater, and previous efforts that raised local awareness about groundwater conservation. The Wichita County WCA team sustained civic engagement through solidarity, developing a shared sense of meaning and purpose, and taking a diffuse and relational approach to leadership. They managed emotions such as fear, grief, despair, and frustration in a manner consistent with the Public Narrative model of social action. Key factors in their success included an early focus on teambuilding, diverse stakeholder representation, bringing in an outside facilitator, frequent and respectful community outreach, and partnering with state and local government. Voluntary group efforts are effective at conserving groundwater and merit support.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aquifers
Languages : en
Pages : 52
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Author: Sang Su Ha
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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As climate change progresses, extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and abnormal high and low temperatures frequently appear. These extreme changes in weather conditions result in modifying existing production strategies throughout agriculture. Kansas' two most important agricultural sectors, beef cattle and crop production, are in need of adjusting their production strategies reflecting on climate change. This study quantifies how changing climate affects the beef carcass performance and whether adverse impacts on carcass quality can be addressed with index-based insurance. Additionally, we analyzed the possibility of an economic approach to allocating groundwater pumping rights in Western Kansas without infringement of legal ownership. Groundwater is essential for grain production in Western Kansas but has slowly been depleted. The structure of water use rights in Kansas has not been substantially altered for many years. The first chapter examines the influence of weather stress and water quality on beef carcass yield index and marbling score. These attributes, in part, determine the market value of beef. The estimation results indicate that prolonged exposure to cold and heat stress led to deteriorated yield index and a lower marbling score. The yield index increased with longer exposures to heat or cold stress. Furthermore, the heat stress impact is larger than that of cold stress on meat productivity, and the marbling score was more vulnerable to the effect of cold stress. In order to determine how weather stresses affect profitability, we carried out a simulation analysis of beef value reduction. Simulation analysis results indicated that weather stress steadily increased producers' losses, although impaired marbling scores attributed to heat stress had a relatively limited effect on profitability. Estimation results indicate that 40 hours of exposure to heat stress corresponds to approximately a $30 loss per head. Alternatively, 40 hours of cold stress is predicted to cause a loss of about $15 per head. Accessibility to water is essential for beef production, but the impact of water quality on beef carcass outcomes has not been researched in depth. The potential of hydrogen (pH) in groundwater slightly affected beef performance. We also confirmed no significant relationship between transportation and marbling scores was observed. Additionally, we calculated fair premium rates for a weather-index livestock insurance product that mitigates the potential and partial losses from extreme weather. The second chapter analyzed a new groundwater permit allocation scheme for Kansas and the potential resulting groundwater savings and effects on crop production. The primary purpose of Chapter 2 was to quantify the marginal value of groundwater and assess the possibility of market-based permit trading to reduce groundwater extraction without negatively impacting the well-being of producers. The High Plains Aquifer (HPA) spreads out across eight states from South Dakota to Texas and provides more than 90% of irrigation water used in that region. Ninety-seven percent of groundwater extraction from HPA has been used for irrigation, and 76.5% of farms rely on groundwater in Kansas (USDA-NRCS 2013). Despite improvements in groundwater management in Kansas, the major problem of groundwater depletion continues. As awareness of the limitations of centralized governance approaches based on pumping restrictions has increased, localized and decentralized market-based approaches have gained popularity. Data were collected through the use of the Water Information Management and Analysis System (WIMAS) in Kansas. We used local crop-water production functions based on Crop Water Allocator (CWA) developed by the Kansas State University Research and Extension (KSRE). We calculated the marginal value of each irrigation well using crop-water functions. These values are used to set the permit transaction price. Kansas groundwater is worth an average of $782.73 per acre-foot. The area with the highest value is Groundwater Management District (GMD) 4 at $902; the area with the lowest groundwater value is GMD3 at $727. Our simulations found increased farm household income in all regions with permit trading. A Uniform Double Auction generates an average income of $10,772 for groundwater sellers, and buyers may earn $13,046 after groundwater sellers have received their payment. From a regional perspective, the GMD3 region had the highest average buyer income of $15,267 and the highest average seller income of $13,840. In Discriminatory Double Auction, Sellers earned an average of $13,529 from groundwater permit sales, while buyers earned an average additional income of $10,499. However, the ultimate goal of actual groundwater use reduction through water trading is not easily accomplished due to many (65%) unused authorized quantities in Kansas. The benefit from permit trading must outweigh the economic motivation for groundwater saving. The market-based approach could promote sustainable groundwater use under the current Kansas groundwater use trend, providing more returns to farmers with higher yields. Based on these calculated values, the market-based approach increased the private net benefit, as sellers and buyers of permits are better off after trading. To make permit trading successful in Kansas with groundwater use saving, one must overcome barriers such as issuing new water permits each year, high non-use rates, and non-infringement on those who received water rights before 1964. The Kansas State Government and farmers should begin discussions and administrative support to pursue a sustainable agricultural economy due to the conservation for future generations and groundwater resources.
Author: John Opie
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496207289
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 438
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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. Read Char Miller's article on theconversation.com to learn more about the Ogallala Aquifer.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Groundwater
Languages : en
Pages : 52
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