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Author: Kevyn Brooke Thompson
Publisher:
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Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Value of land is a combination of multiple characteristics of the parcel including water availability, which can greatly affect land sale prices. The objective of this study is to determine the relationship between water availability and land sale prices in Kansas. Within the study region of the 31 westernmost counties in Kansas, the primary source of irrigation for crop production is the Ogallala Aquifer. To this day, depletion rates of the aquifer greatly exceed recharge rates and aquifer water levels continue to steadily decline. As water from the aquifer becomes more scarce, profitability and land values will also decline. A solid understanding of the impact water availability has on land values is imperative to better estimate future land values. Data from the Property Valuation Division (PVD) of the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDR), the Water Information Management and Analysis System (WIMAS), and the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) were all utilized to determine the relationship between water levels and land values. A hedonic price method was employed to analyze the data. Irrigated parcels have a greater premium compared to dryland operations. In general, a majority of producers in western Kansas are commonly more concerned about having the ability to irrigate rather than the amount water available to irrigate.
Author: Kevyn Brooke Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Value of land is a combination of multiple characteristics of the parcel including water availability, which can greatly affect land sale prices. The objective of this study is to determine the relationship between water availability and land sale prices in Kansas. Within the study region of the 31 westernmost counties in Kansas, the primary source of irrigation for crop production is the Ogallala Aquifer. To this day, depletion rates of the aquifer greatly exceed recharge rates and aquifer water levels continue to steadily decline. As water from the aquifer becomes more scarce, profitability and land values will also decline. A solid understanding of the impact water availability has on land values is imperative to better estimate future land values. Data from the Property Valuation Division (PVD) of the Kansas Department of Revenue (KDR), the Water Information Management and Analysis System (WIMAS), and the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) were all utilized to determine the relationship between water levels and land values. A hedonic price method was employed to analyze the data. Irrigated parcels have a greater premium compared to dryland operations. In general, a majority of producers in western Kansas are commonly more concerned about having the ability to irrigate rather than the amount water available to irrigate.
Author: Samuel Hector Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138
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Author: Pedro Vicente Garay Armoa
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Water scarcity is already a critical issue in many regions across the world and in many places water supplies are likely to be further threatened by climate change (Bates et al., 2008). Climate change will affect water availability in these areas both directly and indirectly. The direct effects come about because increased temperature (accompanied by changes in wind, humidity, and solar radiation) may increase evaporative losses from surface water bodies, and also because reduced precipitation lowers the rate of water inflows. In the case of groundwater, these factors will reduce the rate of aquifer recharge (Bates et al., 2008). The indirect effects arise from the biophysical impacts of climate change on vegetation, which are induced from rising temperatures, changing precipitation regimes, and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. As a result of climate change, significant changes are expected in the hydrological cycle. This research is focused in how climate change can affect crop, land, and water allocation over time. The specific issue of this research comes from the following question: Is climate change likely to have a significant impact on the effectiveness of different water conservation policies in the High Plains aquifer region? This study is focused on the American High Plains, one of the most important water-scarce agricultural regions in North America. The study region for this research is a 31-county area overlying the Ogallala aquifer in western Kansas. This region encompasses approximately the western third of Kansas. Across these counties, the estimated remaining usable lifetime for aquifer water ranges from 50 to over 200 years (KGS), representing the range of water available in various parts of the aquifer. A Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) model (Howitt, 1995) was developed and calibrated to land- and water-use data in the thirty one county area for a base period of 2000-2008. The PMP simulation uses inputs of price conditions and the aquifer level in a given year to predict the acreages planted to each of the major crops and the water use by crop. Decision makers are assumed to maximize profits, given the limited availability of water and arable land. The major crops in the model include wheat, corn, sorghum, soybeans, and alfalfa; the vast majority of historical planted acreage in the case counties is comprised of these five crops. The model was run for each of the case regions after calibrating the PMP model to data from 2000-2008. Calibration ensures that the model predictions fall within a small tolerance of the base period observations. This step avoids the problem of over-specialization (where the model places all of the acreages under one or two of the most profitable crops), and gives realistic acres and water use figures with which to work. The results suggest that the effects of the use of water conservation policies such as water use restriction and permanent conversion to dryland crops have positive effects on the trends of the different variables studied. With the implementation of these two policies, lower levels of total water use and higher levels of saturated thickness result but with a consequence of lower levels of net returns. However, the positive effects are lower in almost all cases if the effects of climate change on the same policies are taken into consideration. The scenarios of higher levels of temperature and lower precipitation levels projected for the region imply a greater demand for water for irrigated crops that results in lower levels of saturated thickness and simultaneously lower levels of net returns.
Author: James Kasal
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44
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Author: Gabriel S. Sampson
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Incomplete property rights are common across a range of natural resources such as fisheries and groundwater. The High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas provides one example of a complex but incomplete system of property rights. Rights to groundwater in Kansas are incomplete due to the physical characteristics of the resource, limited transferability between irrigators, and regulatory uncertainty. This paper takes a hedonic approach to understanding how three core features of prior appropriation water rights in Kansas--access, allocation, and seniority--confer value to irrigated farmland. All three water right features are priced into land values. Groundwater access rights confer an average land value premium of 71%, or $1,443/acre. Water rights having larger allocations and more seniority are more valued in the land market. The effect of seniority is consistent with more junior rights facing greater regulatory risk of curtailments. Our results indicate incomplete resource rights still confer value. Additionally, we use our empirical estimates to quantify the distributional costs of adopting modified groundwater governance regimes that ignore heterogeneity in allocation or seniority.
Author: Kellen Liebsch
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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: Kansas. State Water Resources Board
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Water-supply
Languages : en
Pages : 140
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Author: Amer Al-Sudani
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Agriculture represents a major use of land across the globe. Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture. In addition, water is an essential factor for life on the planet. Besides being key to human survival, water for irrigation is considered the primary factor for raising the productivity of lands around the world. About 20% of the world's croplands are irrigated, but they produce around 40% of the global crop supply. Thus, farmers' decisions with regards to water use in the face of water scarcity is an important topic with economic and environmental implications. Agricultural land decisions are affected by economic factors (e.g., output and input prices) and environmental factors (e.g., climate, soil characteristics, water quality, water availability, ecology). Government policies can have direct and indirect impacts on farmers' cropping patterns and land use decisions. Water scarcity is a significant constraint on l and use and crop production in the Great Plains. The primary source of irrigation water in Kansas is the High Plains aquifer (HPA), which underlies about 175,000 square miles, in parts of eight states. The HPA has been extensively used for agricultural irrigation in Kansas began in the 1930s and 1940s. Prolonged pumping from this aquifer has led to declining water levels, especially in the southwestern part of the aquifer. Decreases in aquifer levels between 2000 and 2017 ranged from 5 feet to more than 80 feet in southwestern Kansas. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of agricultural land use in Kansas in the context of water scarcity, biofuel expansion, and government policy. The study area is the HPA in Kansas using field-level and county-level data set. Results from these studies provide important contributions to estimation of acreage response and land-use change to water scarcity; the impact of ethanol market expansion on local irrigation decisions; and more robust estimation using a more flexible land use modeling based on land use budgeting. Results of the study are of interest to policy makers, watershed managers, agricultural producers and other Kansas stakeholders interested in land-use and irrigation decisions studies. The first essay is an attempt to examine the effects of water scarcity on crop acreage shares using a multinomial logit (MNL) statistical framework to model land use of major irrigated crops (alfalfa, corn, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat) in the Kansas HPA. We estimate county level and regional level acreage share elasticities with respect to a number of water scarcity variables. Generally, most of the elasticity's signs are consistent between the county- and regional-level. However, regional-level elasticities are slightly higher in magnitude than elasticities in other studies that do not focus specifically on irrigation. Our results show that water deficit, depth to water, natural gas prices, and quantity of water authorized for extraction have an effect on irrigated crop acreage share at the county- and regional-level. The second essay proposes to demonstrate that a more generalized version of the MNL framework, the nested multinomial logistic (NMNL) statistical framework for modeling land use can provide a flexible model to address a multi crop and multi land use response for assessment of the impacts on land use from economic and non-economic factors. First, we show that NMNL acreage share models can be derived from well-defined profit maximizing behavior under specific assumptions. Second, we show that the NMNL acreage share model can provide a multi-crop and multi-land use econometric modeling framework that can be used to estimate unconditional, conditional and group acreage share elasticities that allow for the assessment of direct and indirect effects of explanatory factors on land use decisions and allocation. The model is illustrated using an empirical example of farmer land use allocation between irrigated cropland, non-irrigated cropland, and non-cropland categories. The third essay aims to examine local irrigation decisions of agricultural producers in the Kansas portion of the HPA in response to ethanol market expansion. To identify the effects of ethanol expansion on local irrigation decisions, we examine field-level data on irrigation water use, total irrigated acreage, and irrigated crop decisions for the years 2000-2018. Specifically, we measure the response of three irrigation decisions: (i) irrigated acreage (extensive margin), (ii) irrigation per acre (intensive margin), and (iii) total water use (total effect) to the location and production capacity of an ethanol plant. We adopt proximity of 25KM and 50KM neighborhood of field from ethanol plant as treatment group to capture the impact of ethanol plant location and capacity on irrigation behavior of fields. We estimate that ethanol plants increase total water use by 12.36 acre-ft and 9.12 acre-ft per field when a new plant is built within 25KM and 50KM neighborhood distance, respectively. In addition, we estimate that a 1 million gallon per year increase in ethanol capacity leads to about a 0.26 and 0.19 acre-ft increase in total water use per field for 25KM and 50KM neighborhood, respectively. Approximately 13% of total response in total water use is due to increases in irrigated acreage. Furthermore, we estimate that a 1 million gallon per year increase in ethanol capacity increases irrigated corn by 0.07 and 0.09 acre per field for 25KM and 50KM neighborhood, respectively.
Author: Matthew Ken Clark
Publisher:
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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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The expansion of the biofuels industry, world demand, and various other factors are having a historic impact on the price of grains. These high prices have been creating a large increase in production of many water intensive crops such as corn. As corn is among the most input-intensive crops, this extra production has raised concerns about environmental impacts and pressures on water resources in particular. While water quality has been a longstanding concern in the cornbelt, much of the new production is in nontraditional corn regions including the southeast, the High Plains, and the western states. In these areas, there is mounting concern over depletion of already stressed water supplies. In the High Plains, the chief water source is the Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest water resources in the world that underlies eight states from South Dakota to Texas. The Ogallala has enabled many agricultural industries, such as irrigated crops, cattle feeding, and meat processing, to establish themselves in areas that would not be possible otherwise. A consequence is that the economy of this region has become dependent on groundwater availability. Continued overdrafts of the aquifer have caused a long-term drop in water levels and some areas have now reached effective depletion. This thesis seeks to estimate the impact of the rising commodity prices on groundwater consumption and cropping patterns in the Kansas portion of the Ogallala. The economy of this region is particularly dependent on water and irrigated crops, with more than 3 million head of feeder cattle and irrigated crop revenues exceeding $600 million annually. Sheridan (northwestern Kansas), Seward (southwestern Kansas), and Scott (west central Kansas) counties have been selected as representative case study regions. These counties have a wide range of aquifer levels with Seward having an abundant supply, Sheridan an intermediate supply, and Scott nearing effective depletion. Cropping patterns in these counties are typical of the western Kansas region, with most irrigated acreage being planted to corn and with dominant nonirrigated rotations of wheat-fallow and wheat-sorghum-fallow. A Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) model was developed and calibrated to land- and water-use data in the case counties for a base period of 1999-2003. The PMP approach produces a constrained nonlinear optimization model that mimics the land- and water- allocation decision facing producers each year. The choice variables in the model are the acreages planted to each of the major crops and the water use by crop. The model was run for each of the case counties. The PMP calibration procedure ensures that the model solutions fall within a small tolerance of the base period observations. Once calibrated, the models were executed to simulate the impacts of the emerging energy demand for crops over a 60-year period. After the baseline projections were found, the model was then run under increased crop prices that reflect the higher prices observed in 2006 and after. The thesis found that under the high price scenario, both irrigated crop production and water application per acre increased significantly during the early years of the simulated period in all modeled counties. The size of the increases depended on the amount of original water available in each county. The increases generally diminished in magnitude toward the end of the simulation period, but led to smaller ending levels of saturated thickness as compared to the base price in all counties. Finally, in two of the three counties, it was observed that initial increases in irrigated crop acres and water application forces a decline in the aquifer such that less water can be applied per acre in the final years of the simulation. This suggests that high commodity prices forces a higher emphasis on early production levels than later production levels. Additionally, the higher prices have a significant effect on the rate of decline of the Ogallala aquifer.
Author: Charles A. Perry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 104
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