Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer Water Reserves in Western Kansas PDF Download

Author: Kurt W. Davis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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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: John Opie
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496207289
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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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: 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: Matthew Ken Clark
Publisher:
ISBN:
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: Howard Grant O'Connor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Groundwater
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Author: Edward D. Jenkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hydrology
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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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:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Artificial recharge of groundwater
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Author: L. E. Dunlap
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Groundwater
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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