Location: Delta Water Management Research
Project Number: 6024-13000-004-011-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Feb 1, 2020
End Date: Jan 31, 2025
Objective:
1. Conduct detailed measurements of on-farm water flows in order to strengthen the agricultural community’s understanding of the function, effectiveness, and benefit of conservation irrigation practices.
2. Examine the trend of ground water (GW) decline in a selected area and assess the possible positive impact from heretofore construction of conservation irrigation practices.
3. Examine the on-farm economics of conservation irrigation practices.
Approach:
Working at the field scale, we will field sensors to track water use on several farms in the Cache Critical Groundwater Area and the Grand Prairie Critical Groundwater area. Several farms will be identified by NRCS and measurements will take place at all sites with a few select sites slated for more detailed measurements. Analysis of new and existing data will help determine the economics of conversions from ground water (GW) to surface water (SW), at a few varying levels of conversion at the farm level.
Hydrographs from existing monitoring wells hint that the decline of GW altitudes may be slowing. A relational or casual study between practice construction, GW decline, and aquifer formation may show prior positive impacts of irrigation practices. to help develop a framework for reviewing the history of practice construction in regions and the historical record of measurements (GW depth, GW & SW reported pumping, etc.) to assess the potential impact of conservation practices to-date based on available data.
