The influence of US water law on irrigation expansion

Sadia Jame, Laura Bowling, Thomas Hertel, Jing Liu and Iman Haqiqi

No 332852, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: For decades, agricultural production in the US has largely been divided into two regions. West of the 100th meridian where annual precipitation is insufficient to support rainfed agriculture and East of the 100th meridian, where annual precipitation at least exceeds annual crop water needs making rainfed agriculture possible. In this region, the adoption of irrigation is optional, and is often considered in terms of the gross margin per rotated acre. However, expansion of irrigated land is also dependent on the availability of water and whether or not producers have the right to develop new water sources. Increased climate variability is making the decision to invest in irrigation increasingly attractive in the Corn Belt. Water withdrawals for irrigated agriculture were 129 million acre feet/year (maf) in 2010, which is 32% of the Nation’s total water withdrawals. Although the trend of water withdraws declined 10% from 2005 and about 25% from 1990 (from 160 to 129 maf) due to increased efficiencies, the irrigated area has increased in the east (Fig 1b) over the last 20 years (2010-1990); in the west the expansion was very minimal (Maupin et al. 2014).

Keywords: Resource/Energy; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332852

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