Optimal cropping patterns and intertemporal groundwater usage under extraction constraints in Oklahoma’s panhandle

Lixia H. Lambert, Yiqing Yao and Lucia R. Levers

Agricultural Water Management, 2025, vol. 313, issue C

Abstract: Managing water resources is particularly important in the semi-arid Southern Great Plains of the United States. Surface water supply is limited compared to the extensive yet overly exploited groundwater resources of the Ogallala Aquifer. The region’s irrigators often encounter a reduced water table and tradeoffs between prolonging groundwater life and maximizing the profitability of irrigated agriculture. This research determines the optimal inter-temporal groundwater and land allocation to row crop production over time with varied ten-year water extraction rates, discount rates, and energy prices. A hydro-economic model is developed for Oklahoma’s Texas County, the state’s largest groundwater user. The model maximizes the Net Present Value (NPV) for producers, subject to resource constraints and a ten-year planning horizon. Results show higher water extraction rates significantly decrease the water table and overall profitability. With lower water extraction rates over ten years, dryland sorghum is a suitable replacement for irrigated maize. Higher energy costs did not show a significant influence on optimal cropping patterns and water usage paths when the water extraction rate is low. Results under different discount rates indicate that if producers put less weight on current costs and income, their total returns on irrigation water could increase over time with less water extraction.

Keywords: Ogallala aquifer; Hydro-economic model; Row crop production; Pumping cost; Total dynamic head; Southern Great Plains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425001866
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:313:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425001866

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109472

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().