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Downside risk of aquifer depletion

Irrigation Science volume 38, pages 577–591 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Groundwater aquifers support agricultural production in many parts of the world. Rapidly declining aquifer levels can have significant negative implications for the sustainability of irrigated agriculture. In this paper, we study the effects of declining well capacities on the downside risk of irrigated agricultural production, defined as the standard deviation of profits that are below the average profit. We simulate seasonal crop yield and profits for three different crops, namely, maize, wheat, and grain sorghum and five different soil types for Finney County in Kansas which overlies the high plains aquifer under current climatic conditions and under the projected climate change scenario with RCP4.5. We find that lower well capacities not only result in lower average profits for all three crops, but they also result in an increase in downside risk. However, we also find that there is significant heterogeneity in downside risk across different crops and soil types. Our results highlight the importance of downside risk for the sustainability of irrigated production under declining aquifer levels and climate change.

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Notes

  1. The results for the rest of the soils are presented in the “Appendix”.

  2. These prices are based on recent crop prices post 2007 and are rounded for simplicity. Biofuel policies in 2005 and 2007 have affected the price of maize.

  3. Average pumping lift in Finney County in 2016, the last year with saturated thickness data from Haacker et al. (2016), was about 36.58 m (120 ft). The cost of pumping with this pumping lift and the electricity price of $0.1 per kwh is $0.027 per \(\hbox {m}^3\) ($2.8 per acre-inch) (https://www.k-state.edu/nres/capstone/Spring%202012_Ogallala.pdf).

  4. Soil type KS04 is similar in characteristics to KS02 and as result, has similar distribution of profits.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Jordan F. Suter for his feedback. This article is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2016-68007-25066, “Sustaining agriculture through adaptive management to preserve the Ogallala aquifer under a changing climate.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

    Mani Rouhi Rad

  2. Department of Agronomy, and Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research on Sustainable Intensification, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    A. Araya

  3. Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Throckmorton Hall, Plant Sciences Center, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

    Zachary T. Zambreski

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  1. Mani Rouhi Rad
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Correspondence to Mani Rouhi Rad.

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Appendix

Appendix

Baseline climate

See Figs. 8, 9 and 10.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS03 for years 1980–2009. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image
Fig. 9
figure 9

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS04 for years 1980–2009. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image
Fig. 10
figure 10

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS05 for years 1980-2009. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image

Climate change

See Figs. 11, 12 and 13.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS03 for years 2070–2099 under the RCP4.5 scenario. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image
Fig. 12
figure 12

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS04 for years 2070–2099 under the RCP4.5 scenario. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image
Fig. 13
figure 13

Distribution of profits for maize, wheat, and sorghum for soil type KS05 for years 2070–2099 under the RCP4.5 scenario. The legends show well capacities in \(\mathrm{m}^3/\mathrm{day}\). The respective well capacities in gallons per minute are 100, 200, 300, 600, and 1200 gpm

Full size image

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Rouhi Rad, M., Araya, A. & Zambreski, Z.T. Downside risk of aquifer depletion. Irrig Sci 38, 577–591 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-020-00688-x

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