New Research Will Evaluate Sustainable Irrigation Practices Under Climate Change to Safeguard future Water Resources
Climate change is already having profound effects on agriculture worldwide, with crop losses due to extreme heat projected to rise through the century. Irrigation is a key tool for agricultural adaptation to these rising temperatures, particularly in regions like the Western U.S., where irrigation is more common. However, the role of groundwater in this adaptation process remains underexplored, especially as aquifers across the globe face rapid depletion.
To address these challenges, Louis Preonas from the University of Maryland’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics has been awarded a four-year, $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The award is a collaboration between researchers at University of Maryland, University of Chicago, Colorado State University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
“Groundwater is a classic Tragedy of the Commons, where many small users extract too much water because no individual user has the incentive to conserve,” Preonas said. “This became a major resource management challenge long before climate change. Our project hopes to be the first to assess what climate change will mean for current and future groundwater scarcity.”
The project, which started on September 1, 2024, will focus on understanding the dynamics between extreme heat, irrigation behavior and groundwater depletion in the U.S. agricultural sector. Using a combination of high-resolution data and rigorous econometric methods, Preonas and his team aim to produce findings that will be highly relevant to researchers studying climate change and natural resources, and to policymakers tasked with budgeting agricultural water consumption as the climate continues to get hotter.
The research will focus on three primary objectives: First, Preonas and his collaborators will estimate how farmers use groundwater irrigation to adapt to extreme heat. By analyzing electricity consumption data from groundwater pumps, they will gain an accurate picture of how irrigation behavior changes in response to high temperatures.
Second, the project will predict the long-term dynamics of groundwater depletion under future climate scenarios These future projections will capture two opposing effects: hotter climates will increase farmers’ demand for irrigation, and their increased use of groundwater will deplete the resource, resulting in higher groundwater pumping costs, making future adaptive irrigation more costly.
Third, the team will analyze the relationship between crop insurance policies and water use, investigating how federal insurance programs influence farmers’ irrigation decisions and groundwater consumption.
By combining these analyses, the project aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of the role groundwater plays in agricultural climate adaptation and to identify strategies for managing this precious resource sustainably.
Collaborating with federal agencies and other stakeholders, the research team hopes the findings from this project will inform future agricultural policies, ensuring that groundwater can continue to support U.S. agriculture while avoiding the risk of long-term depletion.
