Archives for category: flood irrigation

the value of the ditch

April 8, 11 //
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Irrigation ditches traverse the arid West. These ditches were primarily dug to deliver much needed water for irrigation. A couple of articles (1 and 2) this week has confirmed my belief that these relatively inexpensive water delivery systems will play a pivotal role in water allocation and management moving forward.

In my mind, these structures will remain much the same, but the uses will change. These new uses will include flood control, aquifer recharge, groundwater mitigation, wetland development, fisheries management, municipal, domestic, and any additional water market needs that arise–in addition to agriculture of course. Many of these ditches have provided these services all along, there has just never been a market to recognize and capture these values. This is changing.

is flood irrigation efficient?

February 28, 11 //
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Is this an efficient use of water? Depends.

This is a reoccurring coffee shop conversation, so I thought I’d bring it to the web. I’ve previously discussed efficiency projects in terms of marketing and consumptive use. Today, I wanted to focus on flood irrigation. Flood irrigation (depicted above) has long been hailed as an inefficient use of water. In my mind, this stereotype of flood irrigation inefficiency is subject to the management objectives.

This stereotype is true in terms of:

  1. crop yield and consumptive use,
  2. water delivery and application.

This stereotype is not true in terms of:

  1. aquifer recharge and return flows,
  2. profit margin (flood irrigating is cheap).

Yes, what I’m saying is if your objectives are to recharge the aquifer and increase return flows at a higher profit margin, then flood irrigation might not be so inefficient after all.

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This post spurred discussion, references, and links, so I thought it deserved a follow-up.

John Fleck lists some great sources in his FLOOD IRRIGATION blog post.

Dustin Garrick shared this great article on enviromental markets and efficiency in Australia.

And, of course, David Zetland of Aguanomics has touched on this irrigation efficiency conundrum and will return to the topic this coming Friday.