The Not-So-Bright Future of Sustainable Groundwater Use in Agriculture
It would mean a significant reduction in crop yields, according to a new study.
Many experts agree that sustainable groundwater use is important for the future of agriculture, but doing so will mean a significant reduction in crop yields.
Researchers at Dartmouth College recently studied the impact sustainable water use will have on production potential of major US crops. The study, published in Earth’s Future last month, dives into how the production of corn, soybeans and winter wheat—which account for 52 percent of the country’s irrigated land—could be dramatically reduced if a sustainable water supply was used to grow them.
Many farmers rely on irrigation, which uses groundwater from aquifers—underground water sources naturally fed by rainfall, snowmelt and other water that infiltrates the soil. Depleting the aquifers of water faster than it can refill results in reduced groundwater quantities and, therefore, reduced crop yield potential. Aquifers are relied on not only for agriculture but also for drinking water, and they are essential for healthy lakes and rivers. The depletion of aquifers can negatively impact entire ecosystems. “Sustainable” use of groundwater would mean limiting water uses to meet the rate of natural aquifer recharge. And with more than 50 percent of the West’s land classified as experiencing “extreme or exceptional drought” as of October 2021, the rate of future recharge isn’t particularly hopeful.
[RELATED: Irrigation Is Draining Rivers, Lakes and Streams]
To evaluate how a more sustainable use of groundwater would impact these three major US crops, researchers used a crop model to simulate irrigated agriculture from 2008 to 2012. That model, which used weather data, crop varieties, soil properties and farm management, was then compared to USDA survey data to confirm its accuracy.
The findings show that if the water were to be used in a sustainable manner, a decrease in the production of each crop would be necessary. There would simply not be enough water to nourish the amount of crops already grown. The study simulated the reduction in crop production under four scenarios, ranging from most optimistic to most pessimistic in regards to water amounts available, with the most optimistic simulating the highest possible aquifer recharge percentage. The less optimistic scenarios simulate lower recharge percentages and also account for leaving water in the aquifers to maintain a healthy ecosystem.
For corn, the study found, the “most optimistic” decrease in production would be around 20 percent, while the “pessimistic” simulation would require a 45-percent reduction. For winter wheat, the optimistic reduction would reduce production by 25 percent, with the pessimistic ranking at 36 percent. The optimistic groundwater use scenario for soybeans is comparatively low at six percent, but its worst-case scenario ranks closer with other crop predictions at a 37-percent reduction.
How the numbers would play out in actuality will depend heavily on the quantity of rainfall to feed the aquifers. According to the study, regions that rely on the High Plains aquifer, which are prone to lack of rainfall—including Texas, Kansas and Nebraska—would incur the greatest production decreases with sustainable groundwater practices.
The Mississippi Valley and Midwest regions, which rely less on groundwater extraction due to higher precipitation and humidity levels, would see comparatively less reduction in crop production under a sustainable groundwater model.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].The Not-So-Bright Future of Sustainable Groundwater Use in Agriculture
by Shea Swenson, Modern Farmer
February 15, 2022
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreShare With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
Well that is the price you pay for growing crops under ridiculous subsidy schemes and then sibsidize export of that over production so that producers around the world go broke, in their throat cutting efforts to survive the environment has been ruined and rural communities around the world completely destroyed. Thank You USA.
ouch. Franz is certainly right about the ethanol farce not helping things, but I think we need to be frank about today’s “organic” racket too. I’ve converted about 10% of my family’s 175 year old opation to organic because there are enough rich hypochondriacs who seem not to care what food costs. Although for some crops, the yields are respectable, they usually about 75% of normal, and 175% the cost per acre. It burns me up to see the waste of money, water, land, labor and diesel used for theatrical purposes. Our workers dislike the nasty organic pesticides, which make… Read more »
Well that was today’s news of the obvious. The entire premise of intensification is a farce. Sustainable water use is not a choice. Go ahead ignore it, nature will teach you it’s not a choice. At the cost of human life. But, isn’t that a glorious US tradition? Ignoring simple logic, to our peril, should’ve been written into our Constitution.
…supply and demand economics…we export these products for the MONEY…if there was a 25-45% reduction in supply…I believe our food needs would be met and farming would still make money. I don’t believe we have to feed the world…look at what happened in CUBA…the people made the changes and the importers would do the same…there is money on both ends. Farming has created their pollution issues and farmers must fix them…they own it..! One thing to remember is this…The animals are doing nothing wrong…could it be there…OWNERS..?