Feedbacks between increasing farm size and groundwater depletion
Abstract
The average farm size has more than doubled within the United States over the last three decades, transforming the agricultural industry and rural farming communities. It is unclear, however, how this ubiquitous trend has affected the environment, particularly groundwater resources that support two-thirds of all irrigated cropland in the nation. Here, we leverage a unique multi-decadal dataset of well-level groundwater withdrawals over the Kansas High Plains Aquifer to determine the two-way interactions between groundwater depletion and the consolidation of farmland. We show that when holding key technological, individual managerial, and environmental variables fixed, doubling the size of a farm's irrigated cropland decreases groundwater abstraction by 2-5% depending on the initial farm size. However, a corresponding shift by large farms to more water intensive crops offsets this improvement in groundwater use efficiency, leading to a slight increase in overall groundwater abstractions. Relatedly, it is found that acceleration of groundwater depletion increases the likelihood an irrigated field is sold, thereby amplifying the cycle of groundwater depletion and the consolidation of irrigated farms. Our findings demonstrate two-way feedbacks between farm structure and groundwater resources within a socio-hydrological system and have implications on both local groundwater management and national farm programs.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H14H..07A
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1803 Anthropogenic effects;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4303 Hydrological;
- NATURAL HAZARDS