Impacts of Ongoing Land-Use Change on Watershed Hydrology and Crop Production Using an Improved SWAT Model

Baogui Li, Gary W. Marek, Thomas H. Marek, Dana O. Porter, Srinivasulu Ale, Jerry E. Moorhead, David K. Brauer, Raghavan Srinivasan and Yong Chen ()
Additional contact information
Baogui Li: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, 2 Yuanmingyuan W. Rd., Haidian District, Beijing 100193, China
Gary W. Marek: USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory, 300 Simmons Rd., Unit 10, Bushland, TX 79012, USA
Thomas H. Marek: Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Amarillo, 6500 Amarillo Blvd. W., Amarillo, TX 79106, USA
Dana O. Porter: Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock, 1102 E. Drew St., Lubbock, TX 79403, USA
Srinivasulu Ale: Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Vernon, 11708 Highway 70 South, Vernon, TX 76384, USA
Jerry E. Moorhead: USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory, 300 Simmons Rd., Unit 10, Bushland, TX 79012, USA
David K. Brauer: USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory, 300 Simmons Rd., Unit 10, Bushland, TX 79012, USA
Raghavan Srinivasan: Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, 2138 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Yong Chen: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, 2 Yuanmingyuan W. Rd., Haidian District, Beijing 100193, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The southern Ogallala Aquifer continues to deplete due to decades of irrigation with minimal recharge. Recently enacted regulations limiting groundwater withdrawals and the potential for farm profitability with cotton production systems indicate driving forces for increased cotton production acreage in the Northern High Plains of Texas (NHPT). This study focused on evaluating the land-use change from corn or winter wheat to cotton under irrigation and dryland conditions in the Palo Duro watershed (PDW) in the NHPT using an improved Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. Land-use change from irrigated corn to irrigated cotton led to reductions in average (2000–2014) annual irrigation, actual evapotranspiration (ET a ), and surface runoff by 21%, 7%, and 63%, respectively. Nevertheless, the replacement of irrigated wheat with irrigated cotton caused irrigation and ET a to increase by 46% and 18%, respectively. Land-use conversion from dryland wheat to dryland cotton showed 0.1% and 15% decreases in ET a and surface runoff, respectively. More than 40% reductions in simulated cotton yields were found when the cotton planting area was moving northward to the cooler NHPT. The ongoing change in land use provided an option to lengthen the water availability of the southern Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation.

Keywords: SWAT model; management allowed depletion (MAD) auto-irrigation method; irrigated agriculture; dryland; Ogallala Aquifer; semi-arid region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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