Spatial irrigation management to sustain groundwater and economic returns

Kent Kovacs (), Mancini Mattia, Henry Christopher and West Grant

No 196758, 2015 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2015, Atlanta, Georgia from Southern Agricultural Economics Association

Abstract: Expanding irrigated agriculture and drought in the Lower Mississippi River Basin have led to large-scale withdrawals of groundwater and a consequent decline in the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer. Conserving the aquifer, while at the same time providing for economic growth, is a challenge for policy makers. We develop a spatially explicit landscape level model for analyzing the aquifer and economic consequences of alternative crop mix patterns. The spatially explicit aquifer model incorporates irrigation needs of the crops grown, initial aquifer thickness, hydro-conductivity of the aquifer, and distance to surrounding grid cells to predict the proportion of groundwater removed from surrounding cells due to pumping on each grid cell. The spatially explicit economic model incorporates site characteristics and location to predict economic returns for a variety of potential crop types. By thinking carefully about the arrangement of activities, we find crop mix patterns that sustain high levels of the aquifer and economic returns. Compared to the crop mix of the current landscape, we show that both aquifer conservation and the value of economic activity could be increased substantially.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Land Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:saea15:196758

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.196758

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