W2190: Water Policy and Management Challenges in the West

(Multistate Research Project)

Status: Inactive/Terminating

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SAES-422 Reports

Annual/Termination Reports:

[12/12/2009] [12/14/2010] [12/11/2011] [12/20/2012] [01/07/2014] [01/13/2015]

Date of Annual Report: 12/12/2009

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/08/2009 - 10/09/2009
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2008 - 09/01/2009

Participants

Benson, Aaron (aaron.benson@ttu.edu) - Texas Tech University;
Brozovic, Nick (nbroz@illinois.edu) - University of Illinois;
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University;
Daugherty, LeRoy (ldaugher@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Eiswerth, Mark (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of Northern Colorado;
Fulton, Evan (fultone@unce.unr.edu) - University of Nevada - Reno;
Ganjegunte, Girisha (gkganjegunte@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research;
Goemans, Chris (cgoemans@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Golden, Bill (bgolden@agecon.ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Hunt, Fen (fhunt@nifa.usda.gov)- NIFA, USDA;
Hurd, Brian (bhhurd@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Michelsen, Ari (a-michelsen@tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research;
Seedang, Saichong (seedang@msu.edu) - Michigan State University;
Speir, Cameron (Cameron.Speir@noaa.gov)- Southwest Fisheries Science Center;
Suppala, Ray (rsuppala1@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska;
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho

Brief Summary of Minutes

The first annual meeting of W2190 was held on October 8-9, 2009, in Portland, Oregon.

Officers for the past year: (Chair) Garth Taylor, Idaho; (Vice chair) Chris Goemans, Colorado State; (Secretary) Nick Brozovic, Illinois.

10/8/2009 Morning Session I

1. Introduction.
Welcoming words and introductions were given by Nick Brozovic.

2. Meeting Goals.
Chris Goemans (via conference call) talked about minutes of the 2008 W1190 meeting (Denver) as well as goals for the 2009 meeting, emphasizing new project objectives and potential collaborative efforts.

3. Scope and organization of W2190.
Fen Hunt discussed the role of multistate research committees in addressing societal problems, as well as the importance of documenting impacts of research.

LeRoy Daugherty talked about the role of the Western AES directors and NIFA in regional projects. He described the different kinds of regional projects, as well as their goals, governance, funding, expectations, and reporting requirements. In particular, he discussed the importance of documenting multistate impacts of research supported by the committee, and provided examples of potential and actual impacts.

Fen talked about ongoing changes at USDA and the new structures and priority areas of NIFA and AFRI. She also discussed opportunities in competitive programs as well as other ways to provide research support in environmental and resource economics.

4. Overview of Project Objectives.
Grant Cardon, Brian Hurd, and Ray Suppala gave a historical and regional rationale underlying the three project objectives: Field-level baseline data gathering and validation (Objective 1); modeling and forecasting of key issues from a farm level up to a regional scale (Objective 2); analysis of new institutional frameworks and policies (Objective 3).

Brian, Ray, and Grant discussed the need to broaden the committee's disciplinary perspectives to increase expertise in climatology, hydrology, and rural sociology.

10/8/2009 Morning Session II

1. Grant gave an overview of a blog that he set up for W2190 (westernwater2190.blogspot.com), allowing comments, links, and upload of files.

2. The committee formed breakout groups to review methods, outputs, milestones, and projected impacts for each of the main objectives. Reporting for each objective was in the afternoon session.

10/8/2009 Afternoon Session I

1. Objective 1 breakout group report.
Grant Cardon reviewed milestones with an emphasis for 2010. Currently, all milestones have adequate personnel within W2190 and are making progress towards 2010 goals.

There was discussion of potential extensions: (i) Using electromagnetics and remote sensing in a field and basin setting for calibration and generating baseline salinity data; (ii) establishing a methodology to adjust yield reductions for insuring deficit irrigation.

2. Objective 2 breakout group report.
Brian Hurd reviewed milestones with an emphasis for 2010. Currently, all milestones have adequate personnel within W2190 and are making progress towards 2010 goals.

There was discussion of potential extensions: (i) solar energy and consumptive water use; (ii) establishing a methodology to evaluate indirect effects of increasing or reducing irrigation.

3. Discussion of deficit irrigation (limited irrigation) as a topic that bridges all research objectives, and opportunities arising from this (such as technical sessions at meetings).

4. State reports.

Nebraska (Ray Suppala): Water policy continues to be dominated by issues with Kansas and the environment; currently water quality is not as relevant. A research focus has been on how to cut back irrigation to meet streamflow requirements without too much impact on agriculture. ET measurements are being refined on a field scale using eddy covariance measures (Derrel Martin), and CROPSIM is in revision. Other issues being considered include analysis of impacts of phreatophyte removal, terraces and ponds, basin-wide water balances, and weather derivatives as a risk management tool.

Kansas (Bill Golden): The Ogallala initiative (including participants from Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and Kansas State) has been working to simulate 60 years of revenue, yield, and secondary impacts within relevant portions of the Ogallala basin. An industry review committee has reviewed protocols and policies based on this research, and some of the policies have been implemented. Analysis suggests that direct water use reductions have a lower impact on producer revenues and local economy than a land retirement program (although currently not allowed by Kansas state law). A current focus is the design and implementation of a deficit irrigation product that can be implemented.

Wisconsin (Mark Eiswerth): Research has focused on lakes management, aquatic invasive species, and linkages between bioenergy and water quality. A water research team has been established at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and a water resources emphasis has been added to the curriculum, with a longer-term goal of becoming a regional water hub.

Utah (Grant Cardon): Research activities fully reported in state report on file.

New Mexico (Brian Hurd): Research has focused on groundwater management and valuation in New Mexico, especially with respect to (i) climate change; and (ii) improving groundwater resource management by the State Engineer's Office. An EPSCoR-funded multistate project (with Idaho, Nevada, and others) is analyzing mountain sources of water under climate change. There is also consideration of social, economic, and cultural dimensions of water use, with a goal of developing a systems dynamic model following flows of water and associated services. Committee members (in particular, Frank Ward) have been active in Afghanistan water and technology transfer work funded by USAID (this work is also multistate, including participants from New Mexico, Illinois, and Colorado).

Texas (Ari Michelsen): Research has focused on four major programs (participants include Ron Lacewell, Tom Marek, and Girisha Ganjegunte):
i) Preliminary economic assessment of Rio Grande salinity impacts. This is a four-phase project, with the first phase nearing completion.
ii) Effectiveness of conservation BMPs in far west Texas. Twenty BMPs for the region have been evaluated. Results suggest that in general, there is little scope for gains, with the most effective BMP being canal lining ($200-$500/AF).
iii) Analysis of the use of brackish water to produce a variety of bioenergy crops.
iv) US-Mexico transboundary aquifer assessment (multistate including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, as well as participants from the USGS and Mexico).

Texas (Aaron Benson): Ongoing research is modeling economics of nonrenewable aquifers, in particular the timing of switching between irrigation and dryland production. Results suggest that promoting research in dryland productivity may be much better than irrigation restrictions.

Idaho (Garth Taylor): Idaho experienced its first water call ever over the summer; it was eventually stayed a month after it was issued. Research has begun to quantify the externality between surface water and groundwater and put back into water allocation modeling. The irrigation demand calculator has been completed and is available.

Illinois (Nick Brozovic): Research focused on:
(i) Integrated hydrologic-economic modeling of surface water-groundwater interaction in the Republican River Basin of Nebraska (multistate participants from Illinois, Nebraska, and Michigan, funded by NSF). Preliminary results suggest that trading of groundwater pumping rights can reduce the costs of water restrictions without compromising streamflow, but that gains from trade and estimated volumes and prices are sensitive to the trading rules chosen.
(ii) Agricultural water security and salmon habitat (multistate participants from Illinois, Texas, and California, funded by USDA-AFRI). Preliminary results from Sonoma County, California, suggest that restrictions on onsite storage of surface water for protection of instream flows for salmonids have had diverse impacts on vineyard owners as a function of location and geophysical setting within the watershed. In some cases, restrictions may have unintentionally exacerbated instream flow problems for salmon.

Nevada (Evan Fulton): Three research programs are under development: (i) technical program to help homeowners and HOAs save water using telemetry to reduce applied water; (ii) conservation program for HOAs and rural areas; and (iii) technical assistance program to work towards defining water rights for reservations.

Michigan (Saichong Seedang): Two ongoing research projects:
(i) Analysis of changes in water law in Michigan due to Great Lakes Compact, with a focus on how to implement regulations requiring evaluation of impacts on stream ecosystems from groundwater extraction (funded by Great Lakes Protection Fund).
(ii) Analysis of potential for developing water conservation offset credits.

California (Cameron Speir): Research focused on salmon: (i) benefit-cost analysis for the Klamath River dam removal; and (ii) Prioritization modeling for watershed restoration for salmon habitat.

10/8/2009 Afternoon Session II

Garth Taylor presented his work with Bryce Contor on a flexible irrigation water demand calculator.

10/9/2009 Morning Session I

1. Discussion of ways to increase multistate collaboration, productivity of W2190.

The committee discussed ways to position itself better for climate change research with respect to water resources, and in particular on how to integrate multidisciplinary climate change research into the group to enable effective approaches to deal with climate change in water resources assessments. There was consensus within the committee that at this point, the focus should be on building bridges to scientists working on climate change, rather than to climate change stakeholders.

The committee discussed ways to increase the productivity of the committee. The following were viewed as desirable:
i) Satellite meetings focused around subject areas (such as deficit irrigation or climate change).
ii) An annual meeting with 1/3 technical presentations (potentially including an invited speaker), 1/3 touring, and 1/3 committee business (with a focus on state reports and activities), for a duration of 2.5 days overall.

Fen Hunt gave an overview of ways in which she can facilitate and enhance multistate committee annual meetings in Washington, DC.

2. Discussion of potential competitive grant funding opportunities.

The committee discussed two potential areas for multistate grant-writing activities: (i) climate change and water resources; and (ii) methodologies to quantify secondary impacts of water use restrictions, particularly for rural communities.

10/8/2009 Morning Session II

Business Meeting.

1. The dates and location for the 2010 W2190 meeting were selected as October 13-15, 2010, somewhere in the Front Range of Colorado (possibly Boulder or Fort Collins). Chris Goemans will act as local host.

2. Satellite meetings. There was discussion about organizing satellite W2190 meetings, either as symposia at larger conferences, or as stand-alone workshops.
Brian Hurd will take the lead on organizing a W2190-linked symposium at the UCOWR summer meeting in 2011, which will have a climate change theme.
Chris Goemans will contact the Western Water Assessment to discuss their interest in collaborating on agricultural and economic aspects of water use where W2190 has expertise. Assuming appropriate interest, a suggested outcome was a co-hosted workshop on climate change and agricultural decision-making. Brian Hurd volunteered to chair a subcommittee to set up such a satellite meeting.

3. Officers for 2009-2010:
Chris Goemans (Colorado State), Chair
Nick Brozovic (Illinois), Vice chair
Bill Golden (Kansas State), Secretary

Accomplishments

W1190 Objective 1. Develop and evaluate alternative technologies to monitor environmental effects of water allocation and management W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems In Nebraska, Suppala and Martin strengthened linkages with faculty in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska, to work on deficit irrigation practices for the Topeka region of USDA, RMA, and in particular to develop a deficit irrigation insurance option. Suppala and Martin continue to maintain and improve Water Optimizer, a decision tool for managing limited irrigation water. This tool has been adopted for use in several states. Research in Nebraska has also developed new modeling methods for the impact of crop residue and terraces on ET and for separating evapotranspiration into evaporation and transpiration. Ongoing research by Grant Cardon is preparing maps of surface and ground water and soil salinity from geo-located water and soil samples and remotely-sensed electrical conductivity data for selected locations in the Bear River Basin, Utah. The physical samples have been analyzed in the Utah State University Analytical Laboratory for total dissolved solids (water) and electrical conductivity (water and soil extracts). Calibration of the remotely-sensed data was conducted against the physical soil samples using the protocols previously published by Cardon and his students. The corrected salinity data are being processed and mapped using GIS software. Plant salt tolerance work was conducted in the USU Research Greenhouses under a carefully controlled dosing experiment. A newly designed near-continuous, gradient dosing system was developed by Cardon and his students, and a paper published on the system and its application to salt tolerance screening was awarded the U.P. Hedrick Student Paper Award for 2009 by the American Pomological Society. Strawberry varieties were established under non-saline conditions followed by exposure to preset levels of soil water salinity using surrogate irrigation waters from representative gypsiferous sources in Utah. Plant growth, yield and quality components were measured. Plant response curves were then developed for each variety. The application of the system to various crops of interest in the diversification of Utah and Western Regional agricultural systems, particularly salt-affected systems, will continue over the duration of this project. In New Mexico, research on agricultural water use efficiency by Hurd, Ward, and colleagues indicated that subsidies of drip irrigation, while increasing farm income, reducing water applied to crops, and increasing food production, can and do actually increase water consumption, potentially affecting downstream users. This has important implications for water management and food production in many arid regions of the United States and globally. Finally, Ganjegunte and colleagues in Texas have collected and analyzed preliminary data from soil column experiments on the spatial distribution of salinity in irrigated pecan and cotton fields in the Rio Grande Project area. W1190 Objective 2. Quantify comparative economic values of water in alternative uses. W2190 Objective 2. Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change In Texas, twenty proposed irrigated agricultural best management practices were evaluated by Michelsen and colleagues for their water conservation potential in Far West Texas for 20 stakeholder organizations for State Water Plan use. Only three of 20 State-recommended conservation practices were found to have potential for significant additional conservation, with an estimated 76,000 acre-feet in water savings. Analyses were also conducted to determine the most economically and financially efficient BMPs to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loads to regional reservoirs joint with USDA-ARS. In Illinois, research efforts by Brozovic focused on watershed-scale spatial analysis of surface water-groundwater interactions. Preliminary results from the Republican River Basin suggest that estimated welfare impacts on farmers from reductions in groundwater pumping rights vary widely with the choice of policy implemented. Tradable groundwater permit schemes have the potential to reduce the costs of water reduction while maintaining instream flows. Multistate, multidisciplinary research collaborations with economists, hydrologists, and sociologists from Illinois, Michigan, California, and Texas are ongoing. In Hawaii, Gopalakrishnan conducted a study to assess the severity and magnitude of persistent drought conditions on water availability for agricultural production. In Nevada, Fulton completed a statewide water needs assessment survey, and provided technical assistance, workshops, and presentations to local, state, and tribal entities. Collaborations with the Nevada EPSCoR group and Arizona cooperative extension were strengthened. In Wyoming, Peck discussed groundwater depletion, irrigation shortages, and the potential for inter-farm water transfers at a meeting of groundwater-dependent farmers in Pine Bluffs, WY. During the year, meetings were held with the WY State Engineer, Assistant State Engineer, and the Director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality about possible multistate collaborative research on coal bed methane water management. ERS assisted USDAs National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) in the development of revised 2008 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Surveys (FRIS). As the ERS FRIS Representative, Glenn Schaible worked with collaborators to develop: 1) a revised FRIS questionnaire that incorporated a new section covering recycled/reclaimed agricultural water use; and 2) a new questionnaire, the 2008 Horticultural Irrigation Survey. Irrigators completed national surveys in early 2009 and a final NASS 2008 FRIS report is expected soon. ERS completed a Final Report for the RMA-funded ERS Water-Supply/Risk Management Project (Schaible et al., 2009). This study, a broad USDA-authorized study, examined crop insurance/noninsured crop assistance for irrigated producers where Federal decisions restrict irrigation water supplies, and consisted of 11 ERS Cooperative Agreements, many with W1190 participants. Glenn Schaible, with assistance from an ERS Team, developed a USDA/ERS response to a 34-question OECD survey addressing U.S. agricultural water-resource issues (Schaible, 2008). The ERS report addressed all aspects of water use in U.S. agriculture (including economic, management, and institutional issues) at all levels of governance. W1190 Objective 3. Assess the effectiveness of alternative management institutions, laws, and policies for water allocation W2190 Objective 3. Investigate alternative water policy and management institutions In North Dakota, data envelopment and stochastic frontier analysis were used by Hearne to assess the relative efficiency of North Dakota and Minnesota conservation districts. In particular, characteristics of relatively efficient North Dakota and Minnesota conservation districts were analyzed. Ongoing work by New Mexico researchers has indicated that groundwater management and institutions can affect greatly the potential for climate change adaptation strategies and the underlying value of water within a watershed. Gopalakrishnan collaborated to identify and quantify stakeholder preferences in Hawaii for water management programs to assist water policy design, resulting in a completed report. In Arizona, Colby and colleagues used econometric analysis to investigate how drought influences the market price of water. This research uses a rich set of water transaction data and climate from 1987 to 2008. Additionally, researchers in Arizona have developed a menu of supply reliability tools and a preliminary set of guidelines for using these tools to enhance water supply reliability under climate change in the Southwest. During the year, Colby served as an advisor to Indian Lands Working Group on Native American water management issues, and also as an advisor to the US Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado River Region on water resource economics, with an emphasis on managing climate-related supply variability. Multistate, multidisciplinary collaborations are ongoing with colleagues in economics, hydrology, atmospheric sciences, ecology, law and political science from numerous universities. Collaborations have also been strengthened with a variety of public agencies and non-profit organizations. In Wisconsin, Eiswerth and colleagues organized a Water Resources Research Team at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater in direct response to water stakeholder interests in southeastern Wisconsin. This team consists of nine faculty members from the following academic departments: Geography and Geology (4 faculty team members), Economics (1), Chemistry (2), and Biological Sciences (2). One of the Team's first accomplishments was to develop a new Water Resources Emphasis that was successfully added to the university's Integrated Science and Business curriculum. Team members also provided service by delivering presentations and serving on panel discussions at a conference hosted by regional stakeholders. Research activities in Michigan by Bartholic, Seedang, and colleagues focused primarily on determining water demand, conservation measures, economics and institutions pertaining to new water regulations in Michigan and the Great Lakes. Short-term outcomes gained through research activities include a new innovative water policy and determination of institutions that should be put in place regarding water allocation. During the year, collaborations with other Great Lakes states, as well as state agencies and local stakeholders were strengthened, and Michigan researchers participated in presentations, publications, workshops, conferences, meetings, and symposiums related to Michigan water regulations and policies over the past year.

Publications

Adams, R.M. and D.E. Peck. 2008. Climate Change and Water Resources: Potential Impacts and Implications. Managing Water Resources in a Time of Global Change: Contributions from the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy. A. Garrido and A. Dinar, editors. Oxford: Routledge Publishing. Aillery, M., N. Gollehon, V. Breneman, and S. Bucholtz. 2009. Modeling Firm Spatial Interdependence Using National Data Coverages: A Regional Application to Manure Management. Natural Resource Modeling. Vol. 22, No. 1, Spring: pp. 42-66. Amosson, S., L. Almas, B. Golden, B. Guerrero, J. Johnson, R. Taylor, and E. Wheeler-Cook. 2009. Economic Impacts of Selected Water Conservation Policies in the Ogallala Aquifer. Research report prepared for the Industry Review Committee of the Economic and Assessment and Impact Priority Area of the Ogallala Aquifer Program. Amosson, S., L. Almas, B. Golden, B. Guerrero, J. Johnson, R. Taylor, and E. Wheeler-Cook. 2009. Economic Impacts of Selected Water Conservation Policies in the Ogallala Aquifer. Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University. (http://www.agmanager.info/policy/water/ConservationPolicies_Ogallala.pdf) Bark-Hodgins, D. Osgood, B. Colby et al. 2008. Habitat Preservation and Restoration: Preferences for Habitat Quality. Ecological Economics. Bartholic, J., S. Seedang, P. Norris, and J. Asher. 2009. New Great Lakes Basin Policy and Integrated Water Management (Proceedings paper). Water Policy Conference (June 22-26, 2009), Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. Bauder, J., G.E. Cardon, T. Bauder, P. Miller, A. Kirkpatrick, L. Browning, R. Waskom and M. Neibauer. 2009. A Practical Guide to Choosing Crops Well-Suited to Limited Irrigation. Intermountain Regional Certified Crop Advisor Training Module. Montana State University Extension. In press. Brinegar, H. and F.A. Ward. 2009. Basin Impacts of Irrigation Water Conservation Policy. Ecological Economics. In press. Brozovic, N., D.L. Sunding, and D. Zilberman. 2009. On the Spatial Nature of the Groundwater Pumping Externality. Resource and Energy Economics. In press. Bulatewicz, T., W. Jin, S. Staggenborg, S. Lauwo, M. Miller, S. Das, D. Andresen, J.M. Peterson, D.R. Steward, and S.M. Welch. 2009. Calibration of a Crop Model to Irrigated Water Use Using a Genetic Algorithm. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 13: 467-1483. Cardon, G.E., R. Patterson and R. Heflebower. 2009. Soil and Water. Water-Wise Landscaping: An Industry Professionals Guide. Heidi Kratch, editor. Utah State University Press. In press. Colby, B. 2009. Water Management in Urbanizing, Arid Regions: Innovative Voluntary Transactions As a Response to Competing Water Claims. Chapter 4 in Policy and Strategic Behaviour in Water Resource Management. Arial Dinar and Jose Albiac, editors. Ashgate Publishing. Colby, B. and J. Pullen. 2008. Influence of Climate Variability on the Market Price of Water in the Gila-San Francisco Basin. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. In press. Colby, B.G. and G.B. Frisvold. 2010. Risk And Resilience: The Economics Of Climate-Water-Energy, Challenges In The Arid Southwest. Resources For the Future Press. Forthcoming. Contor, B.A., R.G. Taylor, and G. Moore. 2008. Spreadsheet Tool for Estimating Economic Demand for Irrigation Water Using Commodity Prices and Evapotranspiration Production Functions. Idaho Water Resources Research Institute. 47 p. Easter, K. W. and L.M.J. McCann. 2009. Nested Institutions and the Need to Improve International Water Institutions. Water Policy. Forthcoming. Easter, K.W. and L.M.J. McCann. 2009. Chapter 3: Sustainable Water Projects: The Task of Economic Instruments and Supporting Institutions. Sustainable Irrigation. Henning Bjornlund, ed., WIT Press. Forthcoming. Eiswerth, M.E., P. Goggin, T. Kane, R. Korth, T. Lyden, and J. Solomon. 2008. Towns of Delta and Iron River Lakes Survey Estimates Citizen Perceptions and Reactions to Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS). The Lake Connection. Madison, WI: Wisconsin Association of Lakes. Summer. Eiswerth, M.E., P. Goggin, T. Kane, R. Korth, T. Lyden, and J. Solomon. 2009. Wisconsin Lakes Under Siege: Learning How Local Citizens Perceive the Threat of Aquatic Invasive Species. Community, Natural Resources and Economic Development Impact Report. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension. August. Eiswerth, M.E., R. Kashian, and M. Skidmore. 2008. Examining Angler Behavior Using Contingent Behavior Modeling: A Case Study of Water Quality Change at a Wisconsin Lake. Water Resources Research. 44, W11426, doi:10.1029/2006WR005828. Fulton, R.E. 2009. American Nile, Awaiting Regulation. UNCE Fact Sheet. Fulton, R.E. 2009. Living In A Water Scarce Environment. UNCE Fact Sheet. Fulton, R.E. 2009. Managing Water Shortages in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. UNCE Fact Sheet. Fulton, R.E. 2009. SCADA: Saving Water Using Remote Sensing. UNCE Fact Sheet. Gurluk, S. and F.A. Ward. 2009. Integrated Basin Management: Water and Food Policy Options for Turkey. Ecological Economics. 68:2666-2678. Hawks, A., G.E. Cardon and B. Black. 2009. Comparing Strawberry Salt Tolerance Using a Low-Volume, Near-Continuous Gradient Dosing System. J. Amer. Pom. Society. In press. Hearne, R. 2009. Review of Emerging Markets for Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of the Panama Canal Watershed. B. Gentry, Q. Newcomer, S. Anisfeld, M. Fotos, editors. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 91(3):855-857. Hearne, R. 2009. Review of Frontiers in Resource and Rural Economics: Human-Nature, Rural-Urban Interdependencies. J. Wu, P.Barkley, and B. Weber, editors. Resources for the Future Press. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research. 1(2): 205-209. Hearne, R. and C. Kritsky. 2009. Characteristics of Active Local Water Management Districts In the Red River Basin. Water Policy. In press. Huffaker, R., N. Whittlesey, A. Michelsen, R. Taylor, and T. McGuckin. 2009. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Conservation Water-Pricing Programs. The International Library of Critical Writing in Economics, Economics of Water Resources Volumes 1 and 2. R. Quentin Grafton, editor. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Cheltenham, UK. Hurd, B. and J. Coonrod. 2009. Management and Policy Implications for Managing Water Resources under Climate Change. Climate Research. In press. Hurd, B. Coping and Adapting to a Changing Climate: Concepts, Issues and Challenges. Annals of Arid Zone. Vol. 47. In press. Irmak, A., S. Irmak, and D.L. Martin. 2008. Reference and Crop Evapotranspiration in South Central Nebraska: I. Comparison and Analysis of Grass and Alfalfa-Reference Evapotranspiration. J. Irrig. and Drain. Eng., ASCE 134(6):690-699. Lagos, L.O., D.L. Martin, S.B. Verma, A.E. Syuker, and S. Irmak. 2009. Surface Energy Balance Model of Transpiration from Variable Canopy Cover and Evapotranspiration from Residue-Covered or Bare-Soil Systems. Irrigation Science. 28: 51-64. Martin, D.L., W.L. Kranz, T.W. Dorn, S.R. Melvin, and A.J. Corr. 2009. Reducing the Cost of Pumping Irrigation Water. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Central Plains Irrigation Conference & Exposition. p. 188-197. McKean, J.R. and R.G. Taylor. 2009. Regional Economic Impacts of the Snake River Steelhead and Salmon Recovery. Society and Natural Resources. In press. Michelsen, A.M. and D. Doremus. 2009. Rio Grande Salinity Management: First Steps Toward Interstate Solutions. New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute Annual Conference (Proceedings), Albuquerque, NM. Michelsen, A.M. and R.A. Young. 2009. Optioning Agricultural Water Rights for Urban Water Supplies During Droughts. Book chapter in Economics of Water Resources Vol.II, 549-559. R. Quentin Grafton, editor. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Norris, P., S. Seedang, and M. Thompson. 2009. Water Use and Water Demand by Self-supplied Residential Water Users in Michigan. Technical Paper # 2008MI118B for USGS Natural Resources Integrated Information System, US Dept of Geological Services. Peck, D.E. and R.M. Adams. 2009. Farm-Level Impacts of Prolonged Drought: Is a Multiyear Event More Than the Sum of Its Parts? Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. In press. Peterson, J.M. and K. Schoengold. 2008. Using Numerical Methods to Address Water Supply and Reliability Issues: Discussion. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 90 (December): 1350-1351. Ramirez, O.A., F.A. Ward, R. Al-Tabini, and R. Phillips. 2009. Efficient Water Conservation in Agriculture for Growing Urban Water Demands in Jordan. Water Policy. In press. Rango, A., B. Hurd, D. Gutzler, and E. Vivoni. 2009. Effects of Climate Change on Mountain Hydrology and Water Management in the Upper Rio Grande Watershed: Assessment Methods and Strategies. Climate Research. In press. Rister, M.E., C.S. Rogers, R.D. Lacewell, J.R.C. Robinson, J.R. Ellis, and A.W. Sturdivant. 2009. Economic and Financial Methodology for South Texas Irrigation Projects - RGIDECON. Texas Water Resources Institute TR-203 (Revised). College Station, TX. Schaible, G.D. (Editor), N. Gollehon, M. Aillery, M. Roberts, C. S. Kim, and W. Quinby. 2009. Policy-Induced Reductions in Irrigation Water Supplies: Agricultural Impacts and Risk Management Options. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. (January): 68 p. Schaible, Glenn D. (Lead). 2008. A USDA/ERS Response to a Questionnaire for the OECD Project: Sustainable Management of Water in Agriculture. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Staff Analysis SA-08-104, Washington, DC. (October): 27p. Schmidt, R.D., R.G. Taylor, and L. Stodick. 2009. Modeling Spatial Water Allocation and Hydrologic Externalities in the Boise Valley Boise Valley Water Use Planning. Program Technical Series No.1. USDI-Bureau of Reclamation, Boise ID. Seedang, S. and G. Zhengfei. 2008. Regulation of Large Quantity Water Withdrawal in Michigan: Assessing Alternative Mitigation Options, Economic trade-off, and Impacts of Policy Implementation. Technical Paper # 2007MI102B for USGS Natural Resources Integrated Information System, US Dept of Geological Services. Seedang, S., S. Fernald, R.M. Adams, and D.H. Landers. 2008. Economic Analyses of Water Temperature Reduction Practices in a Large River Flood Plain. Journal of River Research and Applications. 24: 941-959. Steward, D.R., J.M. Peterson, X. Yang, T. Bulatewicz, M. Herrera-Rodriguez, D. Mao, and N. Hendricks. 2009. Groundwater Economics: An Object-Oriented Foundation for Integrated Studies of Irrigated Agricultural Systems. Water Resources Research. 45: W05430. Sturdivant, A.W., M.E. Rister, R.D. Lacewell, J.W. Norris, J. Leal, C.S. Rogers, J. Garza, J. Adams, and C.N. Boyer. 2009. Economic Costs of Desalination in South Texas - A Case Study of the Southmost Facility. Texas Water Resources Institute. TR-295. College Station, TX. Taylor, R.G. and R.A. Young. 2009. Rural to Urban Water Transfers: Measuring Foregone Regional Irrigation Water Benefits Under Uncertain Water Supplies. The International Library of Critical Writing in Economics, Economics of Water Resources Volumes 1 and 2. R. Quentin Grafton, editor. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Cheltenham, UK. Taylor, R.G., J. McKean, and D. Johnson. 2010. The Location Value of a Recreational Site. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. In press. Thompson, C.L., R.J. Supalla, and D.L. Martin. 2009. Evidence Supporting Cap and Trade as a Groundwater Policy Option for Reducing Irrigation Consumptive Use. Journal of the American Water Resources Association. Volume 45 Issue 6. Thornton, J., T.M. Slawski, and M.E. Eiswerth. 2009. Rehabilitation of Delavan Lake (USA). United Nations Environment Programme, Water Security and Ecosystem Services: The Critical Connection: Ecosystem Management Case Studies. Pp. 17-20. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya. Ward, F.A. 2009. Economics in Integrated Water Management. Environmental Modelling and Software. 24: 948-958.

Impact Statements

Economic and financial analysis of water quality BMPs contributed to selection of an optimal mix of BMPs to improve reservoir storage capacity and water quality in Texas.
Models developed by Nebraska researchers are being used in developing, assessing, and implementing integrated water management plans.
Deficit irrigation insurance research is expected to lead to creation of a deficit irrigation insurance product by USDA, RMA that will be very helpful to irrigators in water-short regions.
Findings from research in Kansas are influencing how regional impacts associated with water use restrictions are modeled in other projects.
In Wyoming, awareness among water managers and users of the potential for water transfers/markets to alleviate shortages and conflicts in a cost-effective manner has been raised.
An understanding of the characteristics of relatively active and efficient conservation and watershed districts will allow North Dakota policy makers to target districts and improve performance.
Mapping of field acreages with BIA and submission of these acreages to Nevada water court facilitated resolution of tribal water questions in Nevada.
Policy makers have a better understanding of the economic and hydrologic impacts of various water conservation policies, of the impacts of climate change on water resources, and of the non-market value of water related recreation.
Soil salinity assessment by electromagnetic induction is helping in the development of appropriate and more effective salinity management practices.
Research findings will help to develop a comprehensive drought mitigation policy for Hawaii with special emphasis on the feasibility of water banking.
The 2008 FRIS assists 1) USDA and USGS with a complete assessment of agricultural water use; 2) EPA, by improving the Agencys ability to assess impacts of nonpoint source pollution; 3) University researchers with improved information on irrigation production practices, water conservation, and water and environmental policy goals; and 4) the private sector with improved data on agricultural water use and irrigation water-management practices.
Researchers involved in the Afghanistan Water and Technology Transfer project are making ground-level improvements to water and agricultural development in Afghanistan.

Date of Annual Report: 12/14/2010

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/14/2010 - 10/15/2010
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2009 - 10/01/2010

Participants

Brozovic, Nick (nbroz@illinois.edu) - University of Illinois (Vice-Chair);
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University;
Dinar, Ariel (adinar@ucr.edu) - University of California Riverside;
Eiswerth, Mark (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of North Colorado;
Ganjegunte, Girisha (gkganjegunte@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas A&M University El Paso;
Goemans, Chris (cgoemans@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University (Chair);
Gopalakrishnan, Chennat (chennat@hawaii.edu) - University of Hawaii;
Hansen, Kristi (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (acting secretary);
Hansen, Neil (neil.hansen@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Harrington, Michael (wdal@lamar.colostate.edu) - CSU (Administrative Advisor);
Hearne, Bob (robert.hearne@ndsu.edu) North Dakota State University (recording temporary);
Hurd, Brian (bhhurd@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Kroll, Stephen (Stephan.Kroll@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Loomis, John (John.Loomis@ColoState.EDU) - Colorado State University;
Michelson, Ari (amichelsen@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas A&M University El Paso;
Nicoletti, Chris (cnicoletti17@gmail.com) - Colorado State University;
Peck, Dannele (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming;
Peterson, Jeff (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Supalla, Ray (rsuppala1@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska;
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho;
Thompson, Chris (cthompson2@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska;
Ward, Frank (fward@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Waskom, Reagan (reagan.waskom@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Young, Bob (ryoung@lamar.colostate.edu) - (previous member)

Brief Summary of Minutes

This is the second annual meeting of W2190, held on October 14-15, 2010, in Fort Collins, CO.

Officers for the past year: Chair - Chris Goemans, Colorado; Vice-Chair - Nick Brozovic, Illinois; Secretary - Bob Golden. (Bob Hearne took down initial minutes for the Fort Collins meeting; Kristi Hansen finalized them.)

10/14/10 Morning

1. Introductions by Chris Goemans (meeting host) and Nick Brozovic.

2. Neil Hansen (Soils and Crop Sciences CSU) gave a presentation entitled, "Water-Conserving Cropping Systems: Lower South Platte Irrigation Research and Demonstration Project." This presentation was consistent with W2190 Objective 1: Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. Neil's research focuses on deficit irrigation. There are many ag-to-urban water transfers on the Front Range of Colorado. These have historically 'buy-n-dry transactions,' where verification of water savings is easy because the field of the selling farmer is dry. If there were a way to partially irrigate profitably, and if water savings could still be credibly verified, then agriculture could continue while farmers were simultaneously transferring water to cities. Neils goal is to find methods (rotation, limited irrigation systems, partial irrigation systems) that will reduce water consumption by 20-40% while maintaining profitability. An additional constraint is that the solution must be cost-effective and use existing technology.

Neil's presentation prompted discussion of a number of issues:
- Selling water as an alternative crop (leases);
- Whether water is risk-increasing or risk-decreasing (see Peterson AJAE 2005).
- Whether the legal structure is in place in Colorado and elsewhere for transferring conserved water (salvage rights);
- The importance of incorporating timing into irrigation models (whether shortage risk is at start or end of irrigation season affects cropping decisions and the likely success of the alternative irrigation regimes that Neil discussed in his presentation);
- Whether dry-year options are a likely outcome (cities really prefer to own water rights rather than lease, or sign dry-year options);
- Resilient institutions, for example, the potential for aggregation on the seller side to increase the bargaining power of farmers, as a water co-op on the South Platte is currently doing;
- How water transfers change the hydrograph, even if the same amount of water ends up in the same place at the end of the year;
- Whether the adoption hurdle for deficit irrigation (and the associated substitution of low-skilled labor for management) is feasible.

3. Fen Hunt (NIFA, USDA) called in briefly from DC. Fen fielded questions about the CSREES to NIFA reorganization. She is now in the Climate Change, Energy, and Environment group.

4. Nick Brozovic thanked the committee members for sending in their state reports. He noted that having the reports prepared in advance of the meeting allows the committee to focus on substantive issues. He also iterated the importance of reporting the multistate and multidisciplinary research being undertaken and the necessity of attaching milestones, outputs, and impacts to our objectives.

5. Mike Harrington (CSU) provided us with news from the Western AES Directors. Mike is now our administrative advisor. (He replaces LeRoy Daugherty.)

Mike reviewed the new USDA priorities: Climate Change, Global Food Security,
Renewable Energy, Nutrition and Childhood Obesity, and Food Safety. There was discussion of how and where water resources research fits into the new NIFA structure. The RFA this year had fewer programs and more integrated programs, and the amount of AFRI funds available for new awards is significantly lower than previous years. Mike gave a presentation on the definition of impacts (vis-à-vis outcomes) and the importance of demonstrating impacts. His presentation prompted lively discussion on the difficulty of defining and measuring impacts, especially in the short-term.

10/14/10 Afternoon

1. Eric Roon (Program Manager, Western Water Assessment) gave a presentation on ongoing research and opportunities for collaboration at Western Water Assessment (WWA). This presentation was consistent with W2190 Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. WWA is the NOAA-sponsored Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) that covers Wyoming, Colorado, Utah. It is based in Boulder, CO. The focus of WWA is to assess risks to climate variability and change. Climate change implies changes in hydrologic cycle. In snowpack dominated systems a warmer future is a challenge. Climate change exacerbates existing stressors, including population growth. WWA likes to bridge science and stakeholder needs. They provide mini-grants to university researchers. Eric expressed their willingness to discuss collaboration possibilities with members of W2190.

Eric's presentation prompted discussion of several issues:
- How about restricting population growth? Some developers have been required to purchase water rights.
- Municipal pricing structures: Block rate pricing is increasingly employed, and pricing based on evapo-transpiration rates is being considered in areas where outdoor water use is a large percentage of residential consumption;
- Use of water-saving devices such as automatic sprinkler systems;
- Climate literacy seems to be improving.

2. Conference announcements.
- Brian Hurd announced that the Universities Council on Water Resources will be holding its annual meeting in Boulder, CO on July12-13, 2010. He suggested that W2190 members could organize a number of sessions, perhaps around the three W2190 objectives. In particular, Brian would like to organize a session on climate change. Bob Hearne wants to organize a session on water policy institutions.
- Ariel Dinar announced an upcoming meeting of the International Water Resource Economics Consortium, which is housed at Riverside, CA. The meeting will take place in Banf, Canada, on July 25-27, 2010. The location and dates were selected to coincide with the annual meeting of the Western Agricultural Economics Association.
- The Heartland Environmental Resource Workshop will take place in Champaign-Urbana in mid-October.
- The American Water Resource Association will meet in Las Cruces, New Mexico on November 7-10, 2011.
- The Western Agricultural Economics Association will meet next summer in Banff, Canada on June 29-July 1.

10/15/10, Morning

1. Todd Doherty (Colorado Water Conservation Board) gave a presentation entitled, "The Alternative Agricultural Water Transfer Methods Grant Program." This presentation was consistent with W2190 Objective 3: Investigate alternative water policy and management institutions. The Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) received funding in 2007 from the Colorado State Legislature to explore alternative methods for transferring water from agricultural to urban use. This is a grassroots effort to develop institutions from the ground up rather than passively accepting institutions imposed by the state. The CWCB web site address is http://www.cwcb.state.co.

Todd's presentation prompted discussion of several issues :
- CWCB has studied the 'super-ditch' concept, whereby a group of ditch companies aggregates to lease water to cities. But the existing super-ditch in the state took five to eight years to develop; will cities wait five to eight years to lease water when they can simply aquire water rights immediately?
- Leasebacks to agricultural use (at least until the purchasing municipality is ready to use the water) are common. One problem with leasebacks is that when the land/water right is transferred to municipalities, the seller has difficulty acquiring financing for capital investments.
- The magnitude (small or large) of third-party impacts from water transfers and water rights transfers.
- Mike Harrington raised the issue of food policy/security. This led to a discussion of the need for better modeling, to better assess what cropping activities are removed from agricultural production, in response to water transfers. Frank Ward suggested the use of Positive Mathematical Programming to equate the marginal values of different cropping activities.

2. Business Meeting. Nick reviewed milestones for 2011. The bottom line is that a number of milestones are done or in advanced progress. A few examples: Nick Brozovi hosted the Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Conference in Illinois. There will be a special edition on groundwater management in the journal Hydrogeology. Jeff Peterson is working on Ogalla validation. Ray Supalla is working on deficit irrigation crop production. Brian Hurd is editing a special issue on climate change. A special issue on water in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics will be out soon.

Next year's reports should include tags on individual activities and outputs indicating the associated W2190 objective. Nick is still waiting for a few more reports for 2010.

The location for the 2011 W2190 meeting was selected. Suggestions for 2011 included Boulder, CO (to coincide with UCOWR), Albuquerque, NM (to coincide with AWRA). Reducing travel costs for young researchers was a major consideration during the discussion. It was decided by majority vote that the meeting will be in Las Cruces/El Paso, Texas, in early October, 2011.

Ariel Dinar has volunteered to host the 2012 meeting in Riverside, CA.

Officers for 2010-2011: Chair - Nick Brozovic, Illinois; Vice-Chair - Dannele Peck, Wyoming; Secretary - Kristi Hansen, Wyoming.

State Reports.

State reports (5-minute summaries of water issues and research activities in each state) took place during all three sessions, as time permitted. Reports are listed here in alphabetical order by state.

California (Arial Dinar): Ariel is looking at developing responses to climate change in the Lower Colorado Basin. He wrote a chapter in the Handbook of Climate Change and Agriculture on how farmers and water users adjust to droughts and climate change. He is also interested in quantitative analysis of institutions. He also has a chapter currently in draft form on the effectiveness of water management institutions. He is estimating an impact of the effectiveness of institutions in California. He may extend this to Colorado River riparian areas and India. Ariels recent paper on California water myths has been very well received.

Colorado (Chris Goemans and Mark Eiswerth): Agriculture in Colorado is trying to do well with less water. Markets are great, but there are issues. Chris is using experimental methods to look at trading institutions that are alternatives to permanent water rights markets. There are a few cities on the Front Range and lots of irrigators. Information is NOT symmetric. One finding thus far is that adding leases on top water rights markets is not good for farmers. Further, farmers do not want to cooperate with research that will give cities the lowest price to offer for water. Mark moved from Wisconsin to the University of Northern Colorado (not a land-grant). UNC has a center that facilitates student field work with stakeholders. Mark formed a water resources team at UNC, where there is a strong preference for multidisciplinary projects.

The Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse web page (www.agwaterconservation.colostate.edu) was introduced as a useful resource. Contact Reagan Waskom at CSU with comments and questions. It includes FAQs on crop water use.

Florida (Ray Huffaker): Ray is working on two Florida water issues. First, the state of Florida is suing BP. John Loomis will work with Ray Huffaker to do contingent valuation and travel cost studies to estimate passive and non-use values. The second issue is climate change. Florida is a peninsula at sea level. Ray Huffaker does not believe in nonstationarity and is looking instead at signal processing.

Hawaii (Chennat Gopalakrishnan): Gopal's work is focused on political externalities. He is retiring this year. Meeting participants expressed their gratitude for Gopals many contributions to W2190 and its predecessors over the years.

Idaho (Garth Taylor): In addition to the accomplishments and impacts listed in Idaho's state report, Garth is conducting water economics outreach courses, to hydrologists and directors at the Bureau of Reclamation and elsewhere.

Illinois (Nick Brozovic): Nick is working on the MODFLOW model of the Republican River. He finds that water trading there reduces water use efficiency and increases return flow. He is also working on California salmon habitat with Cameron Speir (NMFS, also a W2190 member).

Kansas (Jeff Peterson): Jeff's water quality trading project is nearing completion. In that work, Jeff uses choice experiments with potential buyers and sellers to determine attribute preferences. He finds that the institutional setup matters a lot. Now, he is using agent-based simulations. Aquifer depletion in western Kansas and Texas on the Ogallala Aquifer is the subject of multi-disciplinary models. Jeff is also looking at climate change impacts and robust institutions.

Missouri (Laura McCann): Laura is working on water quality, transactions cost measurement, and institutions. She is interested in Missouri River management and domestic water use, and the use of behavioral economics as a tool for addressing these topics.

Nebraska (Ray Supalla): Nebraska's groundwater resource is overappropriated in both the Republican and Platte River Basins. Both basins are closely monitored. Ray is particularly interested in models that show the link between pumping and streamflow, as this would shed light on the conflicts in both basins. Since the primary source of water is groundwater in Nebraska, there is not much concern with questions of where the water is coming from and when. Rather, focus is on Rays water optimizer model (which Ray operates with Chris Thompson and Darrel Martin), and determining the least-cost use of less water. Ray and his colleagues are also working on weather derivatives as a way to hep producers manage risk. (Nebraska farmers do not adopt deficit irrigation practices because crop insurance is not available for farmers who do.) Ray is working with the RMA to develop an appropriate crop insurance instrument.

New Mexico (Brian Hurd and Frank Ward): New Mexico committee members have a three-state model of their single basin, fully integrated. They are also working on a two-tiered municipal pricing simulation model. Frank is conducting research on interstate water issues and (optimal) institutional innovation. He is looking at several institutional constraints in particular: the U.S.-Mexico Treaty, the Endangered Species Act, the Rio Grande Compact, and the New Mexico-Texas Compact. Frank is also studying water scarcity on the Euphrates River. Frank had a piece on irrigation efficiencies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Brian is working with Chris Goemans and George Frisvold to look at climate change impacts and policies in agriculture. He is also developing a hydro-economic environmental systems (HEES) model with northern New Mexico communities and working to incorporate climate change into the Rio Grande basin model.

North Dakota (Bob Hearne): North Dakota is at the infrastructure-building stage of development. There is no irrigation to speak of in North Dakota, due to soil quality. Hot issues in North Dakota include water transfers from the Misouri Basin to Fargo (to protect against 1930's type droughts), fights over water with Manitoba, Devils Lake, Garrison, and Fargo flood diversions. Frank Ward pointed out that Fargos demonstrated ability to acquire water when necessary and redirect it around Fargo during flooding is a good example of a resilient institution. Bob continues to work on the efficiency of local drainage districts and international basin management with Manitoba.

Texas (Ari Michelson and Girisha Ganjegunte): Ron Lacewell sends his regrets. Bioenergy in Texas, particularly feedstocks, is an expanding industry. Some examples of the many research projects underway in Texas by committee members are research on the use of brackish water and algae to produce jet fuel and the development of a salinity drainage function on the Rio Grande project. A four-state Rio Grande salinity coalition has convened, to assess environmental impacts and evaluate alternatives. A large percentage of salinity damages are urban. Better water quality would imply different cropping patterns. Identifying sources of salinity is difficult due to oil and gas well development in region. Ari is participating in the development of the national water census (initiated by the Water Resources Act of 2007). This USGS database will include consumptive use and withdrawals. Ari notes that there is insufficient space in the W2190 state report template for all of Texas publications. Girisha continues his work on soil chemistry (see Texas state report for details).

Utah (Grant Cardon): Grant is stepping back from his modeling work to reexamine parameter inputs. (Some of the parameters on salt tolerance from fifty years ago might not be good.) Grant will collaborate with W2190 committee member Girisha (Texas) on remote sensing of mapping extent and severity of saline soils. Progress on mapping continues.

Wyoming (Dannele Peck and Kristi Hansen): Dannele has a chapter in Ariel's handbook on climate change. She uses a farm model with uncertain water supply to identify what the most critical uncertainties are, from the perspective of the farmer. Inter-year uncertainty is much more important than longer-term uncertainty. This model has good potential. Farmers in the model have the option of using deficit irrigation, but this alternative is not selected in the optimum unless the model is solved with discrete rather than continuous cropping activities. Continuous crop mixes are less realistic than discrete decisions in acreage, though models tend to use continuous crop mixes. Kristi and Dannele are exploring management strategies to deal with coal-bed methane produced water, which is often but not always of low quality. Kristi is also working on the potential for developing a market for ecosystem services in the Green River Basin (headwaters of the Colorado River Basin),which downstream Colorado River users would pay for best management practices. Before arriving in Wyoming, Kristi worked on water transfers and dry-year options, and hydro-economic modeling, in California.

Accomplishments

W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. In Michigan, Bartholic built a water recharge calculator and map for TNC to protect and improve water quantity and quality in the Paw Paw River watershed, helping Coca-Cola with water sustainability practices. Bartholic also received the Outstanding Achievement Award for 2010 from the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation and the State Program Innovation Award from the Environmental Council of States. In Texas, W2190 members' preliminary data indicate that the EMI method is rapid, accurate and significantly less expensive than conventional methods to obtain field scale soil salinity data at a high spatial resolution. Further, the 50 year forecast Texas Region A (northern Texas High Plains) agricultural water use demand model (TAMA) has been revised and updated with the addition of the latest crop ET values and crops. In Utah, Cardon completed research on a unique automated apparatus for screening the salt tolerance of plants, providing a method for choosing drought and salt tolerant species for local and regional conditions. He also completed a research project mapping the extent and severity of soil salinity distribution in the Bear River Basin of Utah. Maps provide baseline input for drought productivity modeling. Further, Cardon also initiated research into refining the calibration between remote electromagnetic measurement of soil bulk conductivity to soil salinity using detailed salt chemistry and speciation in soil solutions. W2190 Objective 2. Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. In Colorado, Goemans is a member of Colorado Water Conservation Technical Advisory Group, helping to design water use data reporting requirements for the state and estimating potential conservation savings. Colorado project members have also completed stakeholder-requested economic study that supports improvements in lake management and promotes linkages to external stakeholders and clientele. In Florida, Huffaker submitted papers on reservoir sedimentation management and irrigation efficiency to Open Hydrology Journal and Optimal Control, Applications and Methods, respectively. In Illinois, Brozovic worked with hydrologists at the Illinois State Water Survey to develop a methodology to assess the sustainability of groundwater use in McHenry County, Illinois. He and collaborators in agricultural economics and civil engineering modeled the economic and environmental impacts of alternate groundwater management policies in Nebraska. Brozovi and Shahnila Islam undertook a hedonic analysis of the value of groundwater in irrigation in Chase County, Nebraska. Brozovic, Speir (NMFS), and others also analyzed streamflow and habitat impacts of seasonal agricultural groundwater pumping in California. In Kansas, Peterson developed and ran a micro-simulation model to assess the impacts of alternative institutional rules on market outcomes and performance. He presented results at the 2010 AAEA meeting. Peterson also developed a positive mathematical programming model calibrated to water- and land-use data in the High Plains, to assess the impact of climate change and different water policies on water resources. He also applied ex ante and ex post case study techniques to the study of the impacts of water-use restrictions in the Wet Walnut Creek Intensive Groundwater Use Control Area (IGUCA) in Kansas. In Nebraska, Supalla and Martin initiated a plan for offering weather derivatives to irrigators as a means of covering the risk of water shortages when groundwater supplies are regulated, cooperatively with industry. In New Mexico, Hurd and Ward have conducted an integrated basin analysis for irrigation water conservation subsidies in the Rio Grande Basin. Findings inform the design of irrigation water conservation policies. Further, Hurd, Ward, and others undertook a regional assessment of climate mitigation policies. The assessment linked Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona in evaluating the economic impacts of proposed legislation. In Texas, an evaluation of irrigated corn from the Ogallala aquifer with the goal of conversion to ethanol resulted in a negative energy balance; more energy is expended in production, transpiration and conversion than is produced. W2190 Objective 3. Investigate alternative water policy and management institutions. In Arizona, Colby and others have undertaken an economic investigation of water transfers, both traditional (permanent) and innovative, focusing on the relative social, economic, environmental and policy effects of the various arrangements. Their efforts have improved the cost-effectiveness and overall performance of voluntary supply reliability arrangements given increased supply variability under climate change. Colbys review of regional water banks, water auctions and dry year option arrangements worldwide has resulted in a list of best management practices for implementing these types of arrangements. Further, three recently completed guidebooks for stakeholders provide practical information for water supply climate change adaptation using water banks, water auctions and dry- year contract. In California, Dinar hosted an International Workshop on Drought in Riverside California, leading to collaboration with drought experts in Australia, South Africa, Spain, and Mexico. He also completed a literature review on drought and climate change institutions, leading to preparation of a book chapter and used as a basis for a research proposal preparation. In Colorado, Goemans and Kroll developed an experimental water rights and water market. Experiment results are being used to develop institutions in Colorado. The market tool is being used in outreach to educate irrigators on potential outcomes. Eiswerth initiated development of a Water Resources Research Team at the University of Northern Colorado, to promote research and outreach linkages with experts at other universities in Colorado and the West. In Hawaii, Gopalakrishnan conducted a comprehensive review and analysis of the allocation of water by Hawaii's water institutions, with special reference to "political externalities". He also completed a detailed case study of a heavily-contested case (Waiahole Ditch, 1997) involving water allocation among multiple stakeholders, focusing on political undercurrents. In North Dakota, Hearne conducted further analysis of the characteristics of efficient water management districts. In particular, he compared stochastic frontier analysis to data envelopment analysis. In New Mexico, Ward has completed an institutional analysis (with applications to New Mexico and to the Balkh Basin in Afghanistan) for evaluating various water shortage sharing arrangements. In Texas, W2190 members performed an analysis of the water markets in the Texas Lower Rio Grande. Results showed that those markets are effective and efficient, given the current property rights regime and existing mechanisms for moving water to higher value uses. In Wyoming, Hansen and Peck have begun to model a hypothetical tradable permits market for coalbed methane by-product water, as a first step toward evaluating management strategies. Hansen has also initiated work to develop a market for ecosystem services in the Green River Basin, to look at ways to improve water quality downstream.

Publications

Almas, L., K. Vimlesh, J. Girase, S. Amosson, L. New, F. Bretz, and T. Marek. 2010. Cost Analysis and Water Conservation Potential of Irrigation Technologies in the Texas Panhandle Water Planning Area. Selected Paper prepared for presentation at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meetings, Orlando, FL, February 6-9, 2010 (19 pages). Amosson, S., B. Guerrero, T. Marek, and L. New. 2009. Wind Energy as an Alternate to Natural Gas Driven Irrigation. Poster abstract published in the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 41(2):555. Bark R.H., Colby B.G. and D.F. Snow Days? 2009. Snowmaking Adaptation and the Future of Low Latitude, High Elevation Skiing in Arizona, USA. Climatic Change. Bartholic, J., W. Northcott, S. Miller, J. Asher, S. Seedang, S. Gasteyer, and J. Andresen. 2010. Refining the Water Needs and Availability for Michigan's Agriculture from a Spatial and Temporal Perspective. Bauder, J., G. Cardon, T. Bauder, P. Miller, A. Kirkpatrick, L. Browning, R. Waskom, and M. Neibauer. 2009. A Practical Guide to Choosing Crops Well-Suited to Limited Irrigation. Certified Crop Advisor Training Module. SS-03918. Soil Science Society of America, Madison WI. Boyer, C.N., M.E. Rister, C.S. Rogers, A.W. Sturdivant, R.D. Lacewell, C. Browning, J.R. Elium III and E.K. Seawright. 2010. Economies of Size in Municipal Water Treatment Technologies: A Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley Case Study. Texas Water Resources Institute. TR-367. College Station, TX. July 2010. Brozovic, N. and Schlenker, W., 2010, Optimal Management of an Ecosystem with an Unknown Threshold. Ecological Economics (in press). Brozovic, N., Sunding, D.L., and Zilberman, D. 2010. On the Spatial Nature of the Groundwater Pumping Externality. Resource and Energy Economics 32(2):154-164. Bulatewicz, T., W. Jin, S. Staggenborg, S. Lauwo, M. Miller, S. Das, D. Andresen, J.M. Peterson, D.R. Steward, and S.M. Welch. 2009. Calibration of a Crop Model to Irrigated Water Use Using a Genetic Algorithm. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 13:467-483. Bulatewicz, T., X. Yang, J. M. Peterson, S. Staggenborg, S. M. Welch, and D. R. Steward. 2010. Accessible Integration of Agriculture, Groundwater, and Economic Models Using the Open Modeling Interface (OpenMI): Methodology and Initial Results. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 14:521-534. Cardon, G.E., R. Patterson, and R. Heflebower. 2010. Soil and Water. Chapter 5 In Water-Wise Landscaping: An Industry Professional's Guide. Heidi Kratch (ed). Utah State University (in press). Clark, M., J. Peterson, and B. Golden. 2009. Effects of High Commodity Prices on Western Kansas Crop Patterns and the Ogallala Aquifer. KFMA Newsletter 3(6):1-3. Colby, B.and G. Frisvold. 2011. Risk and Resilience: The Economics Of Climate-Water-Energy Challenges In The Arid Southwest. Earthscan Press (forthcoming). Colby B. and R. Bark. 2009. Inter-Sectoral Water Trading as a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. In Water Resources Planning and Management (Chapter 41). Editors Q. Grafton and K. Hussey. Cambridge University Press. Costanigro, M., J.J. McCluskey, and C. Goemans. 2010. The Economics of Nested Names: Name Specificity, Reputations, and Price Premia. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Dinar, A., B. Blankespoor, S. Dinar, and P. Kulukurasuriya, 2010. Does Precipitation and Runoff Variability Affect Treaty Cooperation between States Sharing International Bilateral Rivers? Ecological Economics 69(12):2508-2581. Dinar, S., A. Dinar, and P. Kurukulasuriya, Scarcity and Cooperation Along International Rivers: An Empirical Assessment of Bilateral Treaties. International Studies Quarterly (Accepted for Publication May 26, 2010). Dinar, A. and R. Mendelsohn, Handbook of Climate Change and Agriculture. 2011. Cheltenham: Ed-ward Elgar (forthcoming). Dinar, A., Rahman, S.M., Larson, D.F., Ambrossi, P. Act Locally Affect Globally: International Cooperation in Carbon Abatement Projects. Global Environmental Politics. (Accepted for publication September 13, 2010). Easter, W. and L. McCann. 2010. Nested Institutions and the Need to Improve International Water Institutions. Water Policy 12:500-516. Eiswerth, M.E. 2010. Community Questionnaire Survey. Chapter 3 in A Lake Protection Plan for Cravath and Trippe Lakes, Walworth County, Wisconsin. Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission Memorandum Report No. 191. Prepared for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and City of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Waukesha, WI: Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. September 2010. Eiswerth, M.E., and G.C. van Kooten. 2010. Balancing Bio-energy Cropping Benefits and Water Quality Impacts: A Dynamic Optimization Approach. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics (in press). Ganjegunte,G.K., C.L.Trostle, and R.J. Braun. 2010. Irrigation Effects of Cooling Tower Effluent on Soil Chemistry and Alfalfa in the Rio Grande River Basin. Land Degradation & Development (in press). Ganjegunte, G.K., G.F. Vance, R.W. Gregory, M.A. Urynowicz and R.C. Surdam. 2010. Improving Saline-Sodic Coalbed Natural Gas Water Quality Using Natural Zeolites. Journal of Environmental Quality (in press). Ganjegunte, G.K. and R.J. Braun. 2010. Application of Electromagnetic Induction Technique for Soil Salinity and Sodicity Appraisal. Proceedings of 2010 International Conference on Environmental Engineering. Goemans, C., S. Kroll, and K. DiNatale. 2010. Alternatives to Permanent Water Transfers Using the Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Company (FRICO) System. Colorado Water 27(1):8-10. Gohar, A., and F.A. Ward. 2010. Gains from Expanded Irrigation Water Trading in Egypt: An Integrated Basin Approach. Ecological Economics (13 pages). Golden, B., J. Bergtold, M. Boland, K. Dhuyvetter, T. Kastens, J. Peterson, S. Staggenborg. 2009. A Comparison of Select Cost-Benefit Studies on the Impacts of H.R. 2454 on the Agriculture Sector of the Economy. Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, and B. Thompson. 2010. Myths of California Water - Implications and Reality. West Northwest Journal of Environmental Law & Policy 16(1):1-73. Harou, J.J., Pinte, D., Tilmant, A., Rosenberg, D.E., Rheinheimer, D.E., Hansen, K., Reed, P.M., Reynaud, A., Medellin-Azuara, J.,Pulido-Velazquez, M., Matrosov, E., Padula, S., and Zhu, T. 2010. An Open-Source Model Platform for Water Management That Links Models to a Generic User-Interface and Data-Manager." 2010 International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software: 'Modelling for Environments Sake', Fifth Biennial Meeting, Ottawa, Canada. Hawks, A. 2009. Salinity Inventory and Tolerance Screening in Utah Agriculture. All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Paper 546. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/546. Hawks, A., G.E. Cardon, and B. Black. 2009. Comparing Strawberry Salt Tolerance Using a Low Volume Near-Continuous Gradient Dosing System. Journal of the American Pomological Society 63(4):136-141. Hurd, B. Water-Conserving Attitudes and Landscape Choices in New Mexico. Choices (forthcoming). Hurd, B.H., C.Goemans, G. Frisvold, and J. Stone. 2010. Impacts of Climate Change Legislation on Agriculture in the Rocky Mountain States: Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, White Paper published by the American Farmland Trust (43 pages). Hearne, R. and C. Kritsky. 2010. Characteristics of Active Local Water Management Districts in the Red River Basin. Water Policy. 12:898-912. Huffaker, R. 2009. Protecting Water Resources in Biofuels Production. Water Policy 12:129-34. Hearne, R. and D. Torpen. 2010. Stakeholder Preferences for Water Management Alternatives in the Red River Basin. Water International 36(2):150-164. Isely, E, P. Isely, S. Seedang, K. Mulder, A. Steinman, and K. Thompson. 2010. Addressing the Information Gaps Associated with Valuing Green Infrastructure in West Michigan: Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services Tool (INVEST). Journal of Great Lakes Research 36(3):448-457. Martin, D.L., D.E. Eisenhauer, R.J. Supalla. 2009. Assessing the Impact of Irrigation Efficiency and Farming Practices on Agricultural Hydrology and Producer Economics. Proceedings, Annual Water Resources Conference, American Water Resources Association, Seattle, Washington. Martin, D.L., R.J. Supalla, C.L. Thompson, B.P. McMullen, G.W. Hergert and P.A. Burgener. 2010. Advances in Deficit Irrigation Management. Proceedings of 5th National Decennial Irrigation Conference, sponsored by ASABE and the Irrigation Association, Phoenix, Arizona, December 5-8, 2010. McCann, L. 2009. Transaction Costs of Environmental Policies and Returns to Scale: The Case of Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans. Review of Agricultural Economics 31(3):561-573. Mendelsohn, R. and A. Dinar. 2009. Climate Change and Agriculture: An Economic Analysis of Global Impacts, Adaptation, and Distributional Effects. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Norris, P., S. Seedang, and M. Thompson. 2009. Water Use and Water Demand by Self-Supplied Residential Water Users in Michigan. Technical Paper # 2008MI118B for USGS Natural Resources Integrated Information System; US Dept of Geological Services. O'Donnell, M. and B. Colby. 2009. Dry-Year Water Supply Reliability Contracts: A Tool for Water Managers. University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. http:/ag.arizona.edu/arec/people/profiles/colby.html. O'Donnell, M. and B. Colby. 2009. Water Auction Design for Supply Reliability: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation. University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. http:/ag.arizona.edu/arec/people/profiles/colby.html. O'Donnell, M. and B. Colby. 2010. Water Banks: A Tool for Enhancing Water Supply Reliability. University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. http:/ag.arizona.edu/arec/people/profiles/colby.html. (Guidebook for Stakeholders) Peck, D.E. and R.M. Adams. 2010. Farm-Level Impacts of Prolonged Drought: Is a Multiyear Event More Than the Sum of Its Parts? Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 54:43-60. Peck, D.E. and R.M. Adams. Climate Change and Agriculture: Use of Firm-Level Mathematical Programming. In A. Dinar and R. Mendelsohn (eds.) Handbook on Climate Change and Agriculture. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire: Edward Elgar Publishing (forthcoming). Peck, D.E. 2009. Continuous Versus Discrete Decision Variables: Implications for Optimal Drought Management. In Abstracts of Invited and Selected Papers and Organized Symposia, WAEA Annual Meetings, Kauai, Hawaii, June 24-26, 2009. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 34(3):546. Ramirez, O.A., F.A. Ward, R. Al-Tanini, and R. Phillips. 2010. Efficient Water Conservation in Agriculture for Growing Urban Water Demands in Jordan. Water Policy (forthcoming). Rahman, S. M. A. Dinar , and D. F. Larson. 2010. Diffusion of Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 77:1391-1400. Reeves, H.W., D.A. Hamilton, P.W. Seelbach, and A.J. Asher. 2009. Ground-Water-Withdrawal Component of the Michigan Water-Withdrawal Screening Tool: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2009-5003 (36 pages). Saleth, R.M., A. Dinar, and J.A. Frisbie. 2011. Climate Change, Drought, and Agriculture: Role of Effective Institutions and Infrastructures. In: Dinar, A. and R. Mendelsohn, Handbook of Climate Change and Agriculture. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (forthcoming). Shield, L. D., C. Gopalakrishnan and C. Chan-Halbrendt. 2009. Aligning Stakeholders' Preferences with Public Trust in Managing In-stream Flow: The Case of Hawai'i. Water Resources Development 25(4): 657-679. Seedang, S. and P. Norris. 2010. Water Use in Michigan. Technical paper. Michigan Agricultural Experimental Station (in press). Seedang, S., P. Norris, and J. Bartholic. 2009. The Role of Water Conservation Technology, Economics, and Institutions for Managing Groundwater Use Conflicts (Proceedings abstract). The American Water Resources Association Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, November 9-12, 2009. Smith, E.G., M.E. Eiswerth, and T.S. Veeman. 2010. Current and Emerging Water Issues in Agriculture: An Overview. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics (in press). Steward, D.R., J.M. Peterson, X. Yang, T. Bulatewicz, M. Herrera-Rodriguez, D. Mao, and N. Hendricks. 2009. Groundwater Economics: An Object-Oriented Foundation for Integrated Studies of Irrigated Agricultural Systems. Water Resources Research 45: W05430. Supalla, R.J. and C.L. Thompson. 2010. Economics of Groundwater Management Alternatives in the Republican Basin. In Meeting Irrigation Demands in Water-Challenged Environment, Proceedings of USCID Conference, Fort Collins, Colorado, September 28 - October 1, 2010. Supalla, R.J. 2010. Addressing Nebraskas Economic Issues in Water Policy, Monograph published by Platte Institute, Omaha, Nebraska, 2010. Thompson, C.L., R.J. Supalla, D.L. Martin and B.P. McMullen. 2009. Evidence Supporting Cap and Trade as a Groundwater Policy Option for Reducing Irrigation Consumptive Use. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 45(6). Thorvaldson, Jennifer, James Pritchett and Christopher Goemans. 2010. Western Households' Water Knowledge, Preferences, and Willingness to Pay. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics. Torell, G. and F.A. Ward. 2010. Improved Water Institutions for Food Security and Rural Livelihoods in Afghanistan's Balkh Basin. International Journal of Water Resources Development (forthcoming). Ward, F.A. 2010. Financing Irrigation Water Management and Infrastructure: A Review. International Journal of Water Resources Development (28 pages).

Impact Statements

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region, uses Arizona project members‘ economic analysis in their negotiations with irrigation districts on forbearance arrangements. Results of member research on water transfers include enhanced urban and habitat water supply reliability per dollar expended, and reduced water transfer conflict and litigation costs.
In California, a project member hosted an international drought symposium with funding from an NSF grant (March 2010 in Riverside, CA) and collaborated on submission of a multi-country proposal to the EU to deal with drought and water scarcity in semi-arid regions.
In response to requests of U.S. Congressional staff member, a project member provided inputs to frame relevant issues for Congressional Hearing on water allocation in Colorado.
A Colorado project member delivered the keynote address on bio-energy and water at conference hosted by Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and Colorado Governor‘s Energy Office.
Feasibility Study to Assess the Potential of Urban Water Conservation to meet Colorado‘s Future Water Supply Needs to 2050, Goemans, $26,670, Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Alternative Water Transfers in the South Platte Basin using the Farmers Reservoir and Irrigation Company System, Goemans (subcontract), $58,000, Colorado Water Conservation Board.
Historical data and empirical findings from a Hawaii study on water allocation will provide insights into the role of political factors in the crafting of policy by water institutions. A seven-point framework to revamp the current water allocation criteria and procedures of the state of Hawaii‘s Water Commission was developed to assist equitable and sustainable water management.
Funded grants: Assessing the Scope and Utility of Economic Analysis in the Salmon Recovery Planning Process, N. Brozovic, NOAA, $48,996, 2009-2011. With C.Speir, NMFS, W2190 member. Market feasibility assessment of a nutrient trading market in the Lower Illinois River - Lower Senachwine Watershed, A. Ando and N. Brozovic, The Wetlands Initiative, $26,600, 2010-2011.
An intended outcome of Brozovic‘s research is to develop a decision support system for market mechanisms to reallocate groundwater pumping to maintain economic activity and environment.
As a result of research undertaken by project members in Kansas, policy makers will have an improved understanding of creating institutional frameworks that will enhance the performance of environmental markets. Policy makers and irrigators will also have an improved understanding of the impacts of different water policies and climatic variation on irrigators, on land use, and on water availability.
Steward, D, J. Aistrup, L. Kulcsar, J.M. Peterson, and S. Welch. "Hyper-extractive Economies and Sustainability." NSF-CNH Program Grant. September 2009 - September 2012. $1,499,999.
Research undertaken in Michigan promotes the wise use of water resources through the use of informative decision support tools. The impact of the Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool developed by Bartholic has been recognized nationally via the Outstanding Achievement Award and statewide via the State Program Innovation Award.
In Missouri, work on transaction costs of water quality and other agri-environmental policies will lead to the design of policies that are more effective and efficient.
Outreach activity on US water management was conducted at universities in Thailand by Hearne. Thai waste management students were introduced to economic policy instruments.
Supalla and Martin (UNL) received $60,000 from RMA, USDA to support continued work on developing a deficit irrigation insurance product, October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011. Supalla and Thompson (UNL) received $14,000 from Nebraska Department of Natural Resources to assist them in assessing irrigation practices in the Wyoming North Platte Basin.
In New Mexico, two grants have been secured: a five year grant for $1.2 million from the US Geological Survey to examine water institutional innovations that would promote economic and business development; and a multi-year $1.5M interdisciplinary project, "Acequia Water Systems Linking Culture and Nature: Integrated Analysis of Community Resilience to Climate and Land Use Changes" was funded.
Funding from NOAA has initiated a 1-year project on agricultural system impacts and opportunities from climate change policies for Arizona and New Mexico.
In Nevada, a subcontract award ($7,000) for assessment of water reuse perceptions and expectations has been funded.
In Texas, project members‘ research shows that irrigated corn for bio-energy requires 1,000 gallons of irrigation per gallon of ethanol and has a negative energy balance. An analysis of production of a dedicated cellulosic feedstock for bio-energy for the upper coast of Texas suggests that the cost per dry ton delivered to a conversion plant exceeds $100.
In Texas, the benefit-cost ratio for biological control of the invasive plant Arundo donax ranges from 4 to 8, suggesting a highly viable program.
In Texas, results of bio-energy salinity tolerance experiments indicate that among cultivars evaluated, sorghum cultivar SN110 and switchgrass cultivar Alamo performed well under elevated salinity.
In Utah, a journal article by Cardon and student detailing salinity screening apparatus and methodology was awarded the First Place, U.P. Hedrick Graduate Student Paper Award by the American Pomological Society. This salinity screening apparatus is being employed by additional research projects in Utah and Oregon, demonstrating the broad applicability and adaptability of the research work.
In Utah, research by Cardon and others into the refining of calibrations for remote measurement of soil salinity received an Excellence in Graduate Research at the 2010 International Conference on Precision Agriculture.
In Wyoming, a presentation by Hansen and Peck on the potential for a market for tradable permits for coal-bed methane produced water stimulated discussion among policymakers in the state. Work by Hansen and others into wetland valuation in dry, inter-mountain climates stimulated discussion at a CNREP forum on socioeconomic research in New Orleans, LA.

Date of Annual Report: 12/11/2011

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/12/2011 - 10/14/2011
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2010 - 09/01/2011

Participants

Brozovic, Nick (nbroz@illinois.edu) - University of Illinois (Chair);
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University;
Dinar, Ariel (adinar@ucr.edu) - University of California Riverside;
Eiswerth, Mark (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of North Colorado;
Ganjegunte, Girisha (gkganjegunte@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research Center at El Paso;
Golden, Bill (bgolden@agecon.ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Hansen, Kristi (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Secretary);
Hearne, Bob (robert.hearne@ndsu.edu) North Dakota State University;
Huffaker, Ray (rhuffaker@ufl.edu - Florida State University;
Hunt, Fen (fhunt@nifa.usda.gov) NIFA;
Hurd, Brian (bhhurd@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Johnson, Jeff (jeff.johnson@ttu.edu) - Lubbock TAMU and TTech;
MacDonagh-Dumler, John (macdon47@msu.edu) - Michigan State University;
Michelson, Ari (amichelsen@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research Center at El Paso;
Peck, Dannele (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Vice-Chair);
Peterson, Jeff (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Schoengold, Karina (kschoengold2@unlnotes.unl.edu) - University of Nebraska;
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho;
Ward, Frank (fward@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes of W2190 meeting
October 12-14, 2011
El Paso, TX

Participants

Brozovic, Nick (nbroz@illinois.edu) - University of Illinois (Chair);
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University;
Dinar, Ariel (adinar@ucr.edu) - University of California Riverside;
Eiswerth, Mark (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of North Colorado;
Ganjegunte, Girisha (gkganjegunte@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research Center at El Paso;
Golden, Bill (bgolden@agecon.ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Hansen, Kristi (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Secretary);
Hearne, Bob (robert.hearne@ndsu.edu) North Dakota State University;
Huffaker, Ray (rhuffaker@ufl.edu - Florida State University;
Hunt, Fen (fhunt@nifa.usda.gov) NIFA;
Hurd, Brian (bhhurd@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;
Johnson, Jeff (jeff.johnson@ttu.edu) - Lubbock TAMU and TTech;
MacDonagh-Dumler, John (macdon47@msu.edu) - Michigan State University;
Michelson, Ari (amichelsen@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas AgriLife Research Center at El Paso;
Peck, Dannele (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Vice-Chair);
Peterson, Jeff (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Schoengold, Karina (kschoengold2@unlnotes.unl.edu) - University of Nebraska;
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho;
Ward, Frank (fward@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University;

Annual Meeting Minutes

This is the third annual meeting of W2190, held on October 12-14, 2011, in El Paso, TX.

Officers for the past year: Chair - Nick Brozovi, Illinois; Vice-Chair Dannele Peck, Wyoming; Secretary Kristi Hansen, Wyoming.

October 13, 2011, Morning Session

1. Welcome by Ari Michelson (Texas): Introduction to region and AgriLife.

2. Introductions of meeting participants

3. Meeting Agenda and Goals (Nick Brozovic, Illinois): We are funded by USDA with the goal of funding multi-state, multi-disciplinary research around the region. This is year 2 of 2190. Goal: to provide tech support, policy analysis, on water policy issues in the West.

4. 2011 meeting minutes are approved.

5. Ari Michelson (Texas) presented an overview of water issues (water resource supplies, demands, management, and current research) in the Paso del Norte Region and Rio Grande Basin. Water resource issues in the region are heavily influenced by interstate and international boundary disputes, two treaties on the Rio Grande, and the importance of salinity as a pressing management issue. The regions recent history has been characterized by drought punctuated by flood events.

6. Girisha Ganjegunte (TX AgriLife Research) gave a presentation entitled, Salinity Measurement and Management by EMI and Polymer Treatment. This presentation provided a springboard for discussion of W-2190 Objective 1: Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. Girisha uses electronic induction to measure salinity at the field-level. He is amassing a series of data collection points that will allow him to extrapolate salinity conditions in the basin. This EMI method measures soil clay content, type of salt, sodicity, salt concentration, water concentration, for only a small fraction (10%) of the cost of other methods. Results can be used by extension researchers to show pecan growers in the Rio Grande Basin, who are very concerned about salinity management, the implications of different management strategies. Experimental findings thus far indicate that permeability and sodicity are improved with polymers, over control and gypsum treatments.

W2190 members noted the potential for good collaboration with economists, as such data measured repeatedly over time could be used in an economic optimization model to see how salinity changes over time in response to policy.

7. Brian Hurd (New Mexico) gave a presentation on a research project to improve management of upland watersheds in mountain communities of New Mexico. This presentation provided a springboard for discussion of W-2190 Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. Funding comes from the New Mexico Agricultural Experimental Station and the National Science Foundation. This is an interdisciplinary, international collaboration with a focus on indigenous mountain communities in New Mexico whose use of water is characterized by pastoral upland watersheds and small-scale irrigation. The purpose of the project is to construct a model of water that is holistic in scope, including not just supply of the physical water resource but also the cultural, economic, and physical capital of the managing indigenous communities. For example, water brokers arrive in these mountain communities looking for water for cities. Under a holistic approach of water resource management, is lining canals and selling the resulting conserved water a good idea? The project seeks to determine how the capacity of these mountain communities can be enhanced to address stressors (e.g., downstream urban water users, climate change) that affect them? Policy guidance is the anticipated outcome, with international applications (e.g., Chile).

8. Ari Michelson (TX AgriLife Research) gave a presentation (joint work with Ron Lacewell and Zhuping Sheng, TAMU; and Tom McGuckin, NMSU) entitled, Assessment of Economic Impacts of Salinity in the Rio Grande Project Area. This presentation provided a springboard for discussion of W-2190 Objective 3: Investigate Alternative Water Policy and Management Institutions. When the Rio Grande Salinity Coalition was established in 2008, the prevailing feeling was that agricultural was the major source of salts entering the river. In reality, there were geological reasons for the increase. The projects goals are to reduce loading, minimize impacts, and find ways to improve supplies. Preliminary assessment thus far is an analysis of the economic damages from salinity. The analysis takes into account agricultural production patterns, current urban conditions, average concentration of salinity in RG river water, and an economic salinity damage function. The analysis indicates where in the basin salinity reductions would result in the largest system-wide decreases in economic losses and explores possible treatment methods.

9. Nick Brozovic (Illinois) reviewed the W-2190 2011 reporting requirements. Two types of reporting are required:
1. Each state must submit publications, accomplishments, and impact statements (these are important) through the committee. Space limitations exist for these state reports.
2. Some states have additional reporting requirements to their Agricultural Experiment Station.

10. Fen Hunt (NIFA Liaison to W-2190) explained USDA expectations for the W-2190 committee. Dr. Hunt stated that W-2190 is one of the more active committees but that we should consider developing a joint proposal that matches group objectives, perhaps under the AFRI priorities of food security, climate variability and change, and sustainable bioenergy. Dr. Hunt also noted that FY2012 requests for applications are open right now, and that several of the foundational (discipline-based) grant programs (environment and markets and trade) did not receive many applications last year. Dr Hunt emphasized the importance of demonstrating impact. AFRI/NIFA is moving in the direction of larger, longer-term grants, to increase impact. International collaborations are encouraged but must justify how international involvement will improve US agricultural food security and environment.

11. BUSINESS MEETING during lunch. Karina Schoengold (Nebraska) was elected to be the W-2190 secretary for 2011-12, with the understanding that the primary responsibility for writing the proposal for the successor to W-2190 will fall to an executive committee established for that purpose rather than the committee officers who are in office in the year leading up to the submission. (The executive committee will be comprised largely or entirely of seasoned W-2190 members who were involved in writing proposals for W-1190 and W-2190.)

Next years W-2190 meeting will be hosted by Ariel Dinar at UC Riverside. [Note, December 1, 2011: Two sets of dates were put to the membership for consideration via e-mail after the El Paso meeting: October 11-12 and October 18-19. It was decided by Doodle poll that the meeting would be held on October 18-19.]

The committees 2013 meeting will likely be held in Jackson, Wyoming. There was much discussion about ways to expand the 2013 meeting to include specific workshop topics that might draw in a larger group of water resource researchers. The workshop could encompass multiple topics (e.g., policy debates in the morning and modeling approaches in the afternoon). Such a workshop could result in a special journal issue. A USDA conference grant (mentioned earlier in the meeting by Fen Hunt) could potentially provide supplemental funding for an expanded committee meeting. (The possibility of applying for a conference grant to fund a mini-workshop at UCOWR was also discussed.) Nothing regarding special plans for the 2013 meeting was decided, though Dannele Peck (incoming Chair from Wyoming) will follow up by e-mail, to delegate somebody to look into conference grant proposal requirements. Other outstanding questions: Should urban water use also be considered, or would this workshop cover urban and other uses as well? What would be the geographic scope of the workshop? (John MacDonagh-Dumler (Michigan) suggested that the Chicago diversion of Great Lakes water to the Mississippi River system has the full gamut of water issues.) Could a USDA conference grant be used to fund a workshop that covered more water uses than just agriculture?

The state reporting pdf template created by Nick Brozovic (including changes implemented this year for the first time) works very well. Nobody suggested additional changes for next year.

All agreed that the current meeting format works very well. Having a presentation on each of the three W-2190 objectives helps to focus discussion. There was enthusiasm for bringing in local, outside (non-academic) presenters to shed light on local water issues.

October 13, 2011 Afternoon Session

1. State reports (see below).

2. Field Tour: Rio Grande canalization, levees, cotton production, American diversion dam, border fence, groundwater pumping, reclaimed water use, soil salinization, river gauging/telemetry and database system, drainage ditches and water quality, urbanization of agricultural lands, pecan orchards, Paso del Norte, scenic drive overlook.

October 14, 2011 Morning Session

1. State Reports (see below).

2. Meeting/Agenda Logistics for Next Year
This years meeting agenda called for breakout sessions to allow committee members to meet in smaller groups for more in-depth discussion on individual W-2190 objectives. However, the group determined that the state reports fostered such good cross-fertilization of ideas between objectives that in-depth discussion of state reports within the larger group was a more productive use of time than breakout sessions. It was suggested that next year, breakout sessions be removed from the agenda but that state reporting should take place by objective.

3. Announcements
a. Ariel Dinar (California) announced that UC Riverside will host the 3rd International Salinity Forum Conference in 2013 jointly with the US Salinity Lab.
b. Ariel Dinar (California) announced the call for papers for the 10th IWREC (International Association of Water Economists), to be held in August 2012, Stockholm, at the same time as World Water Week (August 26-31, 2012).
c. Ari Michelsen (Texas) announced the American Water Resources Association meeting in Albuquerque, NM in early November 2011.
d. Brian Hurd (New Mexico) would like to organize a session at UCOWR for July 1-19, 2011 in Sante Fe, New Mexico. The deadline for submitting papers and sessions is December 5, 2011. Submissions of entire sessions (four papers) are encouraged.

State Reports

State reports (brief summaries of water issues and research activities in each state) took place during the last two sessions, as time permitted. Reports are listed here in alphabetical order by state.

California (Ariel Dinar). Arial is currently doing background work for a big, upcoming climate change study looking specifically at water resources and agriculture in California, Arizona, and Texas. George Frisvold (W-2190 member from Arizona) is also involved. Ariel has several recent publications on this topic as well. Competition for surface water sources in California is increasing. Ariels work on this topic is expanding to include experimental economics methods and a survey of experiences of other aquifers in other, similar regions (e.g., La Mancha Aquifer in Spain).

Colorado (Mark Eiswerth). Mark shared a survey (Colorado College Colorado River Basin Survey) on Colorado River management that has been a great tool for stimulating discussion in his courses (http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/). Mark has been involved in a survey measuring awareness of invasive aquatic species. He is also particularly interested these days in the links between water and bioenergy.

Florida (Ray Huffaker). Ray referred us to his state report for details on current activities. Next year, Ray plans to familiarize himself with climate modeling.

Idaho (Garth Taylor). Garth has developed a demand calculator with Idaho colleagues. The calculator utilizes short-run demand functions for irrigation water, and can be used for applied AND consumptive use. It is based on production functions from Martin and Supalla (Nebraska committee members) and from Rick Allen (UNL) and indicates elasticity with respect to ET and crop price. One interesting result of the demand calculator is that producers generally face more risk under crop price than under ET. However, the calculator does not handle crop mix very realistically. Garth is also looking at externalities in hydrology.

Illinois (Nick Brozovic). Nick is currently looking at nutrient trading markets for water quality. The specific context of his current work is a feasibility analysis of trading between rural wastewater treatment ponds and farmers, through the construction of inexpensive instream wetlands. Nick is also working with Cameron Speir on surface water-groundwater interactions in Klamath Basin: what policies might control groundwater externalities to increase instream flows and salmon habitat. One non-intuitive finding so far is that in some habitats, regulating water users who are farther away from the waterway has greater benefits than regulating water users who are closer. For example, if you are concerned about water quality in October, regulate away from the stream in July and August rather than regulating by the river in October. Nick also has an NSF project on the Republican River Basin. This is a multi-disciplinary project with engineers, sociologists, and others. The next step in the project is to establish a groundwater trading market in a particular watershed, applying lessons learned thus far from the project.

Kansas (Jeff Peterson and Bill Golden). Golden explained that a policy initiative of the Kansas governor is to do something about depletion of the Ogallala aquifer. The previous mandate was to minimize withdrawals. The new mandate is to reduce water use AND grow the agricultural sector. Restructuring water rights might present an answer to this challenge, but Kansas lacks the political will for such a solution. WARAT is an irrigation management tool that looks at crop mixes and risk and develops production functions that producers can change. Petersons current research is focused on impact of and adaptation to climate change; and the use of PMP in hydrologic modeling.

Michigan (John MacDonagh-Dumler). Researchers in Michigan continue development of an on-line water withdrawal assessment tool. Groundwater users can use this tool to determine whether a new well at a specific location will have the expected yield without having an adverse impact on streamflow. This tool was designed to facilitate implementation of the interstate compact among eight states to manage the Great Lakes. Another decision support tool is HIT (high-impact targeting tool). This geospatial tool has been used to assess the areas at highest risk for sediment, erosion, and nutrient runoff. One problem with the tool is that confidentiality restrictions prevent the researchers from broadcasting findings broadly. One solution to this conundrum may be to give the tool to NRCS.

Nebraska (Karina Schoengold). Nebraska committee members are working on expansion of the Water Optimizer irrigation decision support tool. In particular, they are adding intra-seasonal water use planning to the tool. Karina is currently working on risk management, specifically input price risk for water, and how this affects irrigation technology adoption. Thus far, results indicate that when prices are riskier, there is more adoption of conservation irrigation, though the effect is small. Karina is also working on issues related to weather and climate risk, and how farms use government risk management programs to mitigate this risk. Karina is also working with Nick (Illinois) on a Republican River groundwater trading pilot study.

New Mexico (Frank Ward and Brian Hurd). Frank is currently focused on models designed to incorporate various externalities into basin modeling. He is also looking at the structure of trans-boundary agreements, and the effects of structuring them based on diversion rights or delivery requirements. Brian is looking at system dynamics models within a community-based modeling framework (see Brians presentation above). Such system dynamics models can handle nonlinearities and complexities perhaps better than more conventional mathematical programming. This framework is a useful tool for consensus-building and management. A good discussion ensued on the pros and cons of system dynamics models versus mathematical programming models; and simulation versus optimization.

North Dakota (Bob Hearne). There has been a lot of flooding this year in North Dakota. Bob published a book chapter on Devils Lake and is currently focused on Missouri River water management.

Texas (Ari Michelsen). Texas committee members have generated nine journal publications and more than 15 presentations this past year. Their research continues on a number of topics, including using EMI for spatial distribution of salinity analysis, greenhouse production, salt-tolerant sorghum and switch grass cultivars, bioenergy, analyzing soil erosion and nutrients, seawater desalination for municipal water production, and the appropriateness of various discounting rates for natural resources. Ari recently published a survey article on water modeling in the Journal of Natural Resource Modeling. Ari also discussed the fact that many state water plans (including that of Texas) do not distinguish well between quantity demanded versus demand.

Utah (Grant Cardon). Grant is looking at salinity at the field- and regional-scales, in the Cache Valley (Bear River Basin) and the Uinta (upper Colorado area). Specifically, he is looking for patterns and sources and how scarcity and salinity affect productivity, with the idea of developing some predictive ability.

Wyoming (Kristi Hansen and Dannele Peck). Dannele won an international award for a recent article examining farm-level response to drought and climate change. Kristi has been using PMP to capture the value of storage in a hydro-economic model of the northern California water system. She has also begun work on scoping the potential for an ecosystem services market project in the Green River Basin of southwestern Wyoming, which is part of the headwaters of the Colorado River System. Several ecosystem services under consideration relate to water quality, quantity, and timing issues. Kristi and Dannele are both part of a Wyoming inter-disciplinary team to examine the resilience and adaptability of Wyoming producers to climate change and drought; and a project examining management strategies for coalbed methane produced water in the Wyoming Powder River Basin.

Accomplishments

W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. In Kansas, the Water Allocation Risk Analysis Tool (WARAT) project (funded by RMA) was completed and a web-based tool was released to the public. In Nebraska, the AquaCrop model developed by the FAO was used to analyze intra-seasonal water management for deficit irrigation. A sensitivity analysis identified the most significant parameters for the model. The model was calibrated to results for irrigated and rainfed corn for five years of data from eastern Nebraska. As expected a complex model produces non-unique results for a range of physical and empirical coefficients. Committee members in Nebraska also completed the optimization routines for the suite of models included in the Water Optimizer program. Now, options are now available to optimize limited irrigation water supplies for a single field for a single year, a single field for multiple years, multiple fields for a single year and multiple fields for multiple years. Each of the options represents a form of water allocation that producers face in Nebraska and the surrounding states where pooling of water over multiple fields and/or years may or may not be allowed. In New Mexico and Arizona, regional assessment of water use and carbon management policies continues to incorporate farm and ranch behavior in evaluating the economic impacts of proposed legislation. Also in New Mexico, a survey of acequia members has been conducted on perceptions and issues related to water use, community challenges, and adaptation to stresses from population and climate change. In Texas, research continued on determining the spatial distribution of salinity in the study area using Electromagnetic Induction (EMI) technique. Additional fields were included in the assessment of spatial distribution of salinity by the EMI technique. This research is being carried out in collaboration with NMSU, Utah State University, and local growers. Also in Texas, greenhouse experiments evaluated bioenergy crop performance under elevated salinity conditions and the use of wastewater irrigation for sorghum and switchgrass cultivars. Data to date have indicated that the EMI method can provide accurate field scale soil salinity data at a high spatial resolution in less time than the conventional methods. In Utah, Cardon prepared a set of Spanish-language irrigation fact sheets for horticultural crops common to the western US (cherry, peach, apple and strawberry). Cardon also completed a set of salinity distribution maps for irrigated soils in Utah's Bear River Basin using rapid electromagnetic remote sensing methods to asses/track irrigation-induced saline conditions. Cardon also completed study on ultra low dilution chemistry useful in removing biases due to ion-pairing on the estimation of soil salinity from saturated paste and EMI electrical conductivity measurements. In Wyoming, Peck was the recipient of the award for Best AJARE Article at the Australian Agricultural & Resource Economics Society (2010) for [Peck and Adams, Farm-level impacts of prolonged drought" Aust. J. Ag. Res. Econ. 54:43-60]. Peck also sought and received suggestions from Ward (New Mexico) on improving a draft manuscript on the use of continuous versus discrete variables to model deficit irrigation. Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. In California, Dinar developed close interactions with water agencies in Southern California in addressing environmental policy and climate change impacts on water management. In Colorado, committee members conducted experiments to examine the potential long-term success of different climate change policies, and observed that success of these policies depends, more than expected, on the perceived probability of negative effects from climate change. Colorado committee members also estimated potential visitation and resulting economic impact associated with kayaking and a proposed whitewater rafting park on the Poudre River in Colorado. Estimates were used to convince the City of Fort Collins there would be enough visitation to move the project planning into the site design phase. Committee members also completed dynamic-stochastic Mussel Management Decision Support tool for the Colorado-Big Thompson System: http://dare.colostate.edu/tools/cbtmussels.aspx Colorado committee members also delivered a final study to public environmental managers in the area of water resource and lakes management in an urban area. This effort fostered links to external stakeholders and clientele. In Florida, Huffaker completed study of reservoir dynamics associated with a newly-emerging environmentally-friendly sedimentation control technology--"hydrosuction dredging". In Florida, Huffaker wrote software in R that detects patterns in time-sequenced ecosystem (including hydrologic) data. Detected patterns provide a valuable guide to modeling ecological and hydrologic systems. In Idaho, Taylor (with colleagues) gave a presentation to USDI - BOR Science and Technology entitled, Hydrologic Externalities and Western Water Management (December 2011). In Idaho, Taylor (with a colleague) gave a three-day workshop for Bureau of Reclamation project managers entitled, Water Economics Workshop, in Boise, ID (September 2010). In Illinois and California, Brozovic, Speir (NMFS and W2190), and a student analyzed streamflow and habitat impacts of seasonal agricultural groundwater pumping in California. In Kansas, Peterson assessed the impacts of curtailing water rights in the Wet Walnut Creek Intensive Groundwater Use Control area (IGUCA) in central Kansas with ex-ante and ex-post case study techniques. In Kansas, Peterson also recoded a mathematical programming model of irrigation water use to interface with a model coupling tool called OpenMI, allowing linked simulation of economic, hydrologic, and other models. In Michigan, a water recharge calculator and map system built for The Nature Conservancy to protect and improve water quality and quantity will be expanded and utilized in the southeastern portion of the state. In Nebraska, Supalla and Martin worked with the USDA-RMA, with assistance from colleagues at Kansas State University, Colorado State University and Oregon State University, to develop a process that will provide deficit irrigation insurance. Administrative policies often prevent producers from insuring crops that receive less than a full water supply, which often results in suboptimal allocation of limited water supplies for producers. We adapted procedures in Water Optimizer to develop a method to adjust producers historical yields without water shortage to a new yield goal for insurance. We hope to work with the USDA-RMA for a pilot test of the procedure in either 2012 or 2013. New Mexico committee members have used an integrated basin scale analysis to examine economic costs and benefits of water right purchases for recharging and sustaining regional aquifers in the Rio Grande Basin. In Wyoming, Hansen and Peck have begun to explore the extent of damage to agricultural lands from coalbed natural gas by-product water in the Powder River Basin in preparation for evaluating alternative management strategies. At ERS, Schaible was the ERS representative on three Federal Inter-Agency water workgroups: (1) USGS Water Census Advisory Committee; (2) USDA Water Team; (3) USDA/World Bank Water Productivity workgroup. At ERS, Schaible developed national Water Census priorities and implementation plans (Water Census, 2011) and the first-ever USDA-REE Action Plan (2011) for meeting goals on water availability and quality. At ERS, Schaible, Kim, and Aillery presented a new water-management model and the policy motivation for improving irrigation efficiency for a sustainable irrigated agriculture sector. An ERS effort (EIB 2011) identifies challenges for agricultural water conservation, opportunities for improving irrigation efficiency, and the merits of broadening the scope of current water conservation policy. Objective 3: Investigate Alternative Water Policy and Management Institutions. In California, Dinar conducted presentations of project outputs in stakeholder meetings and public at large events. In Colorado, Goemans and Kroll conducted experiments to examine what affects public acceptability of alternative policy and management institutions. Findings suggest that incentive-based policies traditionally endorsed by economists are, independent of efficiency considerations, less supported than expected. In Colorado, development of a Water Resources Research Team to promote research and outreach linkages with experts at other universities in Colorado and the West continues. In Colorado, Goemans (in his role as a member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board HB1051 Advisory Group) developed utility data reporting requirements for the state of Colorado (developed reported tool outlining specific data utilities must report each year). Requirements were developed using similar efforts in Colorado and Texas as guidelines. In his capacity as CWCB Technical Advisory Group member, Goemans also completed survey of major Colorado water utilities identifying current data collection efforts and priority conservation planning information needs. The new Principles and Guidelines is requiring federal agencies to conduct Cost Benefit Analysis on a watershed scope and account for ecosystem services. The spatial partial equilibrium model constructed by Taylor and colleagues provides the Bureau of Reclamation project managers with an integrated hydrologic economic planning tool that is watershed in scope and incorporates hydrologic externalites. Taylor and colleagues have provided planners with advanced methods to evaluate recreation site demand and estimated the value of recreation for some of Idahos major recreational opportunities. In Idaho, Taylor applied for and/or was awarded five grants: $150,000 Climate Change and Water Management. R. G. Taylor, R. D. Schmidt, J. Tracy. US Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. Pending; $100,000 Economics of Off Highway Vehicles. Garth Taylor Levan Elbakidze and Phil Watson. Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. Pending; $4,000. Water Economic Workshop. Phil Watson and Garth Taylor 2010; $7,500 Analysis of Green Technology in North Idaho. Michelle Vachcon, Phil Watson, Garth Taylor. EDA Community Development Block Grant 2010-2011; $83,000 Boise Valley Hydro/economic model. Johnson, R. G. Taylor, R. D. Schmidt, J. Tracy. US Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. 2009-2012. In Illinois, Brozovic and collaborators in agricultural economics, civil engineering, & sociology modeled the economic and environmental consequences of groundwater management policies in Nebraska. In Illinois, Brozovic, Ando (UIUC), a student, and collaborators at an NGO analyzed the potential for an agricultural nutrient trading market for water quality in Illinois. In Kansas, economic water modeling efforts for the Ogallala aquifer region were reviewed and published in "Groundwater Policy Research: Collaboration with Groundwater Conservation Districts in Texas." In Kansas, Peterson estimated the impact of transaction costs in for payment-for-environmental-service (PES) contracts from discrete choice experiment data on water quality trading in Kansas. In Michigan, results from efforts to refine water needs and availability for municipal and agricultural uses from a spatial-temporal perspective are being used in predicting possible new irrigation wells through the model Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool (WWAT). In New Mexico, an integrated basin analysis has been conducted for irrigation water conservation subsidies for the several international basins. Findings inform the design of irrigation water conservation policies. In North Dakota, Hearne collaborated with Canadian researchers to assess the use and lack of use of transboundary water management mechanisms such as the International joint commission under the boundary waters' treaty. In Texas, water demands for a dedicated biomass feedstock for energy for the Coastal region of Texas were estimated to require 50,000 af of irrigation water annually. The cost of production, harvesting, hauling and storage averages about $134/ton at the conversion facility for the base case. Also in Texas, a review of the perspectives of resource economists related to appropriateness of discounting natural resources is being conducted. In Wyoming, Peck arranged for Goemans and Kroll (Colorado W-2190 members) to present "The Impact of Leasing on Water Rights Markets" at the University of Wyoming agricultural and applied economics departmental seminar. In Wyoming, Hansen and colleagues have begun work to scope the potential for a payment for ecosystem services project in the Green River Basin. The goal of this project is to preserve wildlife/riparian habitat and downstream water quality/quantity as cost-effectively as possible while providing rancher-landowners with an additional stream of revenue. Hansen also contributed to the development of a hydro-economic modeling platform called HydroPlatform, a database management software tool intended to streamline inter-disciplinary basin-level modeling efforts.

Publications

Adusumilli, N.C., T. Lee, M.E. Rister, and R.D. Lacewell. 2011. "Impacts of Biofuel Crop Production on Water Quality. Annual Meeting of the Universities Council on Water Resources and The National Institutes for Water Resources. Boulder, CO. July 11-14. Asher, A.J., G. ONeil, W. Northcott. 2010. Final Report The Paw Paw River Watershed Water Quantity and Quality GIS Modeling Report . Submitted to The Nature Conservancy in support of Coca-Cola and The Nature Conservancys desire to protect the Paw Paw River Watershed. 19 pp. Asher, Jeremiah. 2010. The Paw Paw River Watershed Water Quantity and Quality GIS Modeling Report. Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University. 19pgs. Bartholic, J., Y. Shi, K. Maredia, S. Seedang, J. MacDonagh-Dumler. 2010. Institute of Water Research and Institute of International Agriculture, Michigan State University, Characteristics of an Action Plan for Addressing Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia Region. Submitted to the Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute Research Centre, India for inclusion in Proceedings from the Indo-US Workshop on Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia Region, December 10-12, 2009, in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India. In Press. Basta, E. and B. Colby. 2010. "Water Market Trends: Transactions, Quantities, and Prices," The Appraisal Journal 78(1):50-66. Bastian, C.T., S.T. Gray, D.E. Peck, J.P. Ritten, K.M. Hansen, J.M. Krall and S.I. Paisley. The nature of climate science for the Rocky Mountain West: implications for economists trying to help agriculture adapt. Western Economics Forum. (Accepted with revisions) Brandson, N and R, Hearne. Devils Lake and Red River Basin. in E. Norman ed Water Without Borders? Canada, the U.S., and Shared Water.. Toronto. University of Toronto Press (forthcoming). Brozovic, N. and Schlenker, W. 2011. Optimal management of an ecosystem with an unknown threshold. Ecological Economics 70:627-640. Cardon, G., B. Black, and R. Hill. 2011. Riego de Huertos: Cereza. Cooperative Extension Fact Sheet #Horticulture/Fruit/2011-??pr (Spanish-language translation of Fact Sheet # Horticulture/Fruit/2008-03pr, Orchard Irrigation: Cherries). Utah State University, Logan UT. Cardon, G.E., B. Black, and R. Hill. 2011. Riego de Fresas. Cooperative Extension Fact Sheet#Horticulture/Fruit/2011-??pr (Spanish-language translation of Fact Sheet # Horticulture/Fruit/2008-05pr, Stawberry Irrigation). Utah State University, Logan UT. Cardon, G.E., B. Black, and R. Hill. 2011. Riego de Huertos: Manzana. Cooperative Extension Fact Sheet #Horticulture/Fruit/2011-??pr (Spanish-language translation of Fact Sheet#Horticulture/Fruit/2008-01pr, Orchard Irrigation: Apple). Utah State University, Logan UT. Cardon, G.E., B. Black, and R. Hill. 2011. Riego de Huertos: Melocoton. Cooperative Extension Fact Sheet #Horticulture/Fruit/2011-??pr (Spanish-language translation of Fact Sheet # Horticulture/Fruit/2008-pr02, Orchard Irrigation: Peach). Utah State University, Logan UT. Cardon, G.E., R. Patterson and R. Heflebower. 2011. Soil and Water. In: (Kratsch, H. ed.) Water-Efficient Landscaping in the Intermountain West: A Professional and Do-it-Yourself Guide. Utah State University Press, Logan UT. Colby B. and R. Bark. 2010. Inter-sectoral water trading as a climate change adaptation strategy. In WATER RESOURCES PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Editors Q. Grafton and K. Hussey, Cambridge University Press. Colby, B. and G. Frisvold. 2011. Risk and Resilience: The Economics of Climate-Water-Energy, Challenges in the Arid Southwest. Resources for the Future Press. Colby, B., E. Basta, and K. Pittenger. 2011. Temporary Water Transactions And Climate Change Adaptation. In Risk and Resilience: The Economics Of Climate-Water-Energy Challenges In The Arid Southwest, Resource for the Future Press. Colby, B., L. Jones and K. Pittenger. 2011. Economic Tools For Climate Adaptation: Water Transaction Price Negotiations. In Risk and Resilience: The Economics Of Climate-Water-Energy Challenges In The Arid Southwest, Resource for the Future Press. Colby, B. and P. Tanimoto. 2011 Using Climate Information to Improve Electric Utility Load Forecasting. In Risk and Resilience: The Economics Of Climate-Water-Energy Challenges In The Arid Southwest, Resource for the Future Press. Colby, B. 2011. Water transfer guidebooks, posted online. (These provide practical information for water supply climate change adaptation through water banks, water auctions, and dryyear contracts.) Cooke, G. D., E. B. Welch, J. R. Jones. 2011. Eutrophication of Tenkiller Reservoir, Oklahoma from non-point agricultural runoff. Lake and Reserv. Manage. 27:256-270. Costanigro, M., S. Kroll, D. Thilmany and G. Nurse. 2011. "Local and Organic: An In-Store Evaluation of Labels for Apples," Agribusiness: an International Journal 27(4):465-477. DeMouche, L, S. Landfair, and F.A. Ward. 2011. "Water Right Prices in the Rio Grande: Analysis and Policy Implications." International Journal of Water Resources Development 27(2):291-314. Dinar, A. and R. Mendelsohn, Handbook of Climate Change and Agriculture. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (forthcoming, 2012). Dinar, A., D. F. Larson, and J. A. Frisbie, California and the CDM: How California can take advantage of the Clean Development Mechanism to achieve its AB 32 goals by 2020. Water Science and Policy Center Working Paper 02-0911, September 2011. Eiswerth, M.E., S.T. Yen, and G.C. van Kooten. 2011. Factors Determining Awareness and Knowledge of Aquatic Invasive Species. Ecological Economics 70: 1672-1679. Eiswerth, M.E., and G.C. van Kooten. 2010. Balancing Bio-energy Cropping Benefits and Water Quality Impacts: A Dynamic Optimization Approach. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics 58(4):463-480. Eiswerth, M.E. 2011. Community Questionnaire Survey. Chapter III in A Lake Protection Plan for Cravath and Trippe Lakes, Walworth County, Wisconsin. Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission Memorandum Report No. 191. Final Report prepared for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and City of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Waukesha, WI: Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission. Elbakidze, L., X. Shen, B. Contor, R. G. Taylor, and S. Mooney. Hydro-Economic Evaluation of Agricultural Water Compliance: Prior Appropriations-Based Regulatory Curtailment versus a Market Allocation. Water Resources Research (2012 conditional acceptance). Follett, R., S. Mooney, J. Morgan, K. Paustian, L. Hartwell Allen, . S. Archibeque, J. Baker, S. Del Grosso, J. Derner, F. Dijkstra, A. J. Franzluebbers, H. Janzen, L.A. Kurkalova, B. A. McCarl, S. Ogle, W. J. Parton, J. M. Peterson, C. W. Rice, G. P. Robertson, M. Schoeneberger, T. O. West, and J. Williams. 2011. Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities. Task Force Report 142, Council for Agricultural Sciences and Technology. Ganjegunte, G.K., and R.J. Braun. 2011. Delineating Salinity and Sodicity Distribution in Major Soil Series of El Paso, Texas using Electro-Magnetic Induction Technique. Soil Science. 176:441-447. Ganjegunte, G.K., Z. Sheng, and R. Braun. 2011. Salinity Management Using an Anionic Polymer in a Pecan Field with Calcareous-Sodic Soil. Journal of Environmental Quality. 40:1314-1321. Ganjegunte, G.K., C.L.Trostle, and R.J. Braun. 2011. Irrigation Effects of Cooling Tower Effluent on Soil Chemistry and Alfalfa in the Rio Grande River Basin. Land Degradation & Development. 22:410-424. Ganjegunte, G.K., G.F. Vance, R.W. Gregory, M.A. Urynowicz, and R.C. Surdam. 2011. Improving Saline-Sodic Coalbed Natural Gas Water Quality Using Natural Zeolites. Journal of Environmental Quality. 10:57-66. Gastelum, J.R., Z. Sheng and A.M. Michelsen. 2011. Framework for a Water Resources Decision Support System for the Paso del Norte. Planning for Tomorrows Water: Snowpack, Aquifers and Reservoirs, Universities Council on Water Resources and National Institutes for Water Resources Annual Conference. Boulder, CO, July 12-14, 2011. Proceedings Abstract. Gohar, A. A. and F. A. Ward. 2010. "Gains from expanded irrigation water trading in Egypt: An integrated basin approach." Ecological Economics 69:2535-2548. Gohar, A. A. and F.A. Ward. Forthcoming. "Gains from Irrigation Water Use Efficiency in Egypt." International Journal of Water Resources Develolpment. Gurung, T. K., R. P. Dhakal, M. A. Husen, and J. R. Jones. 2010. Abundance and nutrient limiting growth rate of heterotrophic bacterio-plankton in Himalayan foot hill Lake Phewa, Nepal. Lake and Reserv. Res. & Manage. 15: 53-61. Hanak, E., J. Lund, A. Dinar, B. Gray, R. Howitt, J. Mount, P. Moyle, B. Thompson, Managing California's Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation. San Francisco: PPIC, 2011. Hansen, K. 2011. Western Water Markets. Western Economics Forum 9(2):33-42. Hansen, K., D. Peck and S. Smutko. 2010. Tradable permits for CBM produced water: a potential tool for managing quantity and quality issues in the Powder River Basin. Working Paper, Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics, University of Wyoming, November 19, 2010. Hearne, R. 2011. Chiles Water Markets Continue to Evolve. Water Resources Impact. 13(5): 12-14. Hearne, R. and C. Kritsky. 2010. Characteristics of Active Local Water Management Districts In the Red River Basin. Water Policy 12:898-912. Huffaker, R., D. Rider, and R. Hotchkiss. 2010. Stability and Bifurcation Analysis of Reservoir Sedimentation Management. Open Hydrology Journal 4:184-193. Huffaker, R. 2010. Impacts of Biofuels on Water Supply: Proposed Cures May Worsen the Disease. Choices 3:7-10. Huffaker, R. 2010. Phase Space Reconstruction from Economic Time Series Data: Improving Models of Complex Real-World Dynamic Systems. International Journal on Food System Dynamics 3:184-193. Huffaker, R. 2011. Dynamic Analysis. Chapter 2 in Dynamic Analysis Research Tools in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, eds. A. Batabyal and P. Nijkamp, World Scientific Publishing. Hurd, B., C. Goemans, G. Frisvold, and J. Stone. 2011. "Estimated Impacts of Climate Change Legislation on New Mexico Agriculture." NM State AES Bulletin 801. Hurd, B. and J. Coonrod. Forthcoming. Hydro-economic Consequences of Climate Change in the Upper Rio Grande. Climate Research. Isely, E, P. Isely, S. Seedang, K. Mulder, A. Steinman, and K. Thompson. 2010. Addressing the Information Gaps Associated with Valuing Green Infrastructure in West Michigan: INtegrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services Tool (INVEST). Journal of Great Lakes Research 36(3): 448-457. Jones, L. and B. Colby. 2010. Weather, Climate, and Environmental Water Transactions. Weather, Climate, and Society, American Meteorological Society, Volume 2, Issue 3:210223. Jones, J. R. 2010. Missouri reservoirs in the Glacial Plains: evaluating small impoundments. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 30: 1629-1633. Jones, J. R. 2010. Verhandlungen Epilogue. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 30: 1671. Jones, J. R. and J. A. Hubbart. 2011. Empirical estimation of non-chlorophyll light attenuation in Missouri reservoirs using deviation from the maximum observed value in the Secchi Chlorophyll relationship. Lake and Reserv. Manage. 27: 1-5. Jones, J. R., M. F. Knowlton, D. V. Obrecht and J. L. Graham. 2011. Temperature and oxygen in Missouri reservoirs. Lake and Reserv. Manage. 27:173-182. Jones, J. R., D. V. Obrecht, A. P. Thorpe. 2011. Chlorophyll maxima and chlorophyll:total phosphorus ratios in Missouri reservoirs. Lake and Reserv. Manage. 27: (in press) Kallbekken, S., S. Kroll and T.L. Cherry. 2011. "Do You Not Like Pigou, or Do You Not Understand Him? Tax Aversion and Revenue Recycling in the Lab," Journal of the Environmental Economics and Management 62(1):53-64. Larson, D. F., A. Dinar and J. A. Frisbie. The Present and Future Role for Agricultural Projects under the Clean Development Mechanism. In: Handbook of Climate Change and Agricul-ture. Dinar, A. and R. Mendelsohn (Eds.), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers (forthcoming, 2012). Leidner, A.J., R.D. Lacewell, M.E. Rister, J.D. Woodard, A.W. Sturdivant, and J.M. White. 2011. "Seawater Desalination for Municipal Water Production." Annual Meeting of the Universities Council on Water Resources and The National Institutes for Water Resources. Boulder, CO. July 11-14, 2011. Proceedings Abstract. Lohman, K. and J. R. Jones. 2010. Longitudinal patterns in nutrient chemistry and algal chlorophyll below point sources in three northern Ozark streams. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 30: 1559-1566. Maria-Saleth, R., A. Dinar and J. A. Frisbie, Climate Change, Drought and Agriculture: Role of Effective Institutions and Infrastructure. In: Handbook of Climate Change and Agriculture. Dinar, A. and R. Mendelsohn (Eds.), Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers (forthcoming 2012). Martin, D.L., R.J. Supalla, C.L. Thompson, B.P. McMullen, G.W. Hergert and P.A. Burgener. 2010. Advances in Deficit Irrigation Management. 5th National Decennial Irrigation Conference Proceedings, 5-8 December 2010, Phoenix Convention Center, Phoenix, Arizona USA IRR10-9277. ASABE, St. Joseph, Michigan. McCarl, Bruce A., Brian H. Hurd, Siyi J. Feng, Amy D. Hagerman, Jian H. Mu, and Wei W. Wang. 2011. Climate Change and Its Impact on Agriculture: Challenges for the 21st Century. Chapter 1 in (ed.) Cossia, Juliann M., Global Warming in the 21st Century, ISBN 978-1-61728-980-4, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. pp: 1-40. McConnell, W.J., Millington, J.D.A., Reo, N.J., Baker, L.A., Brozovic, N., Fragoso, J., Holland, D.S., Kohler, T.A., Maschner, H.D.G., Monticino, M., Podesta, G., Pontius Jr., R.G., Redman, C.L., Sailor, D., Urquhart, G., and Liu, J. 2011. Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS): Approach, Challenges and Strategies, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 92(2):218228. McKean, John R, D. Johnson, and R. G. Taylor. 2011. Regional Economic Impacts of the Snake River Steelhead and Salmon Recovery. Society and Natural Resources, 24(6):569-583. McKean, J. R., D. Johnson, and R. G. Taylor. 2010. Willingness-to-Pay for Steelhead Fishing: The Implications of Two-Step Consumer Decisions with Short-Run Endowments. Water Resources Research, 46W09523, 11 PP., doi: 10:1029/2009WR008664. Mortensen, IIN. 2011. Intraseasonal Management Strategies for Deficit Irrigation. MS Thesis. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Lincoln, NE. Newburn, D.A., Brozovic, N., and Mezzatesta, M. 2011. Agricultural water security and instream flows for endangered salmonids. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 93:1212-1228. ONeil, G., L. Theller, Y. Shi, J. Bartholic, B. Engel. 2010. The Swan Creek Watershed Management System. presented by ONeil at the TMDL 2010: Watershed Management to Improve Water Quality ASABE Conference, Nov. 14-17 in Baltimore, MD. In Press. ONeil, G., J. Bartholic, Y. Shi. 2010. Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University. High Impact Targeting Decision Support System for BMPs to Most Effectively Reduce NPS Pollution. Presented at the 18th National Nonpoint Source Monitoring Workshop held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin November 16-18. Nov. 17, Session 5-03, In Proceedings on CD, 33 pp. Peck, D.E. and R.M. Adams. 2011. A reply to Multiyear vs. single-year drought: a comment on Peck and Adams. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 55:454-457. Peck, D.E. 2011. Book review: Gopalakrishnan, Chennat and Norio Okada (eds). 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Impact Statements

In Kansas, the model WARAT developed by committee members will help producers to better understand the relationship between irrigation water and yield for major crops in central Great Plains states. Producers will be able to estimate expected farm profitability for their operations and risk associated with the expected farm profitability under deficit irrigation scenarios.
In Nebraska, the water management tools developed by committee members and available for managing deficit irrigation in Water Optimizer will allow producers and farm advisors to assess alternative uses of water to maximize the value of the available water. Generalized recommendations are being developed and presented in Extension venues to provide guidelines for producers that are not interested in thorough quantitative analysis. The model also includes economic calculations that allow producers to evaluate the cost of pumping irrigation water to evaluate strategies when water is expensive but not limited.
Small farm irrigators are important to rural northern New Mexico. Current research is expected to support these producers and help them understand and cope more effectively with the challenges of climate change and population growth.
Irrigated agriculture is the major water user in New Mexico. New Mexico committee members are examining impacts of various approaches to establish the duty of water by crop, irrigation, technology, and water application level.
In Texas, field scale soil salinity distribution data by EMI method will help in the development of appropriate salinity management practices.
In Utah, Cardon obtained funding (annual-renewable grant of $50,000) through PacifiCorp to continue research into the long-term impacts of utilizing saline waste cooling water from coal-fired power production plants, as an irrigation source for forage and small grain crop production. Coal-fired power production is common across the western US, making the project germane across a wide geographical region.
Cardon also obtained funding (single-year subaward of $25,000) through US-BLM in cooperation with the USGS and Utah Department of Water Quality, to study the use of EMI sensing technologies to characterize subsurface soil salinity in an integrated effort to track the sources of salinity and selenium entering the Pariette Draw Wetlands in the Uintah Basin of the Upper Colorado River Basin Cardon also obtained funding (single-year subaward of $25,000) through US-BLM in cooperation with the USGS and Utah Department of Water Quality, to study the use of EMI sensing technologies to characterize subsurface soil salinity in an integrated effort to track the sources of salinity and selenium entering the Pariette Draw Wetlands in the Uintah Basin of the Upper Colorado River Basin.
In Arizona, Colby and colleagues produced four guidebooks that report findings regarding how to implement effective voluntary transactions between agriculture, municipalities and environmental programs to help the lower Colorado River basin region cost-effectively adapt to supply variability and extended drought.
Colby and colleagues also produced a statistical model that shows how water lease prices vary with changes in the housing market and drought conditions. This is useful to those planning for urban supply reliability through leasing water to get a city through a dry period. This model demonstrates how costs of acquiring supplemental supplies change under varying climate cycles and housing markets.
In California, Dinar was awarded two grants: (1) Eastern Municipal Water District-($28,000) and (2) Giannini Foundation ($25,000). Both grants support work on water conservation and climate change impacts.
As a result of research on lake management by Colorado committee members, land managers and policy makers will have a better ability to make decisions on how much land to devote to maximizing the production of bio-energy feedstocks while minimizing impacts on water quality.
As a result of continued research by Eiswerth and other members of the University of Northern Colorado Water Resources Research Team, Colorado Cooperative Extension educators will have an enhanced understanding of how to better increase public awareness of aquatic invasive species.
In Colorado, development of a Mussels DSS led to a research grant from Colorado Water Institute to incorporate adaptive management into the model. Also leading to continued collaboration with Department of Wildlife to estimate boater movement throughout Colorado.
In Florida, Huffakers work on reservoir sedimentation dynamics will alert policy-makers to the existence of critical thresholds beyond which sustainable management abruptly gives way to eventual loss of reservoir storage capacity to sedimentation.
In Florida, Huffakers work on phase space reconstruction techniques to detect patterns in time-sequenced hydrologic data will improve the realism and performance of hydrologic models in providing policy-relevant information.
In Illinois, Brozovic and Speirs analysis of instream flow damages from groundwater pumping shows that to achieve ecological flow requirements pumping restrictions may need to vary across space and time in complex ways.
In Kansas, water rights curtailments in the Wet Walnut Creek IGUCA were found to have a short-run negative impact on irrigated acres and revenue, but these impacts did not persist in the long run. The evidence suggests that producers were able to mitigate the initial economic losses by increasing the acreage of high-valued crops and by using more efficient irrigation technologies.
In Kansas, linkages created in Petersons mathematical programming irrigation model will allow for detailed simulations of different climate, market, and policy scenarios to assess the impacts of climate change on crop production income and on depletion rates of water resources. The robustness and resilience of alternative policy strategies to address water scarcity during extreme weather events will also be assessed.
In Michigan, committee members have created an on-line Sediment Calculator Feasibility Study, which allows users to delineate an area within the watershed on a web-based mapping interface, specify land cover change/BMPs, estimate subsequent reduction in annual sediment loading to nearby streams. (Funded by a grant from The Nature Conservancy, $35.000, 9/1/11-3/31/12.)
Michigan committee members continue development of four on-line water-quality management (sediment reduction) decision support systems for the following watersheds: Saginaw River/Lake Huron, Genesee River/Lake Ontario, Maumee River/Lake Erie, Fox River/Lake Michigan. (Funded by a grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, $205,000, 7/16/10-7/15/12-The Great Lakes Tributary Modeling Program 516(e).)
Michigan committee members continue development of communications and analysis tools to address complex natural resources and environmental issues allowing real-time zoom into virtually any geographic area in the state, instant site-specific wellhead management analyses. (Funded by a grant from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, $1,000,000, 7/1/08-6/30/12-Water Resources Partnership.)
Nebraska committee members deficit irrigation insurance work has received interest from growers inside and outside their home state. This is important for groundwater irrigators that are allocated a supply of water on an annual or multi-year basis and for surface water irrigators that are provided a defined volume of water for the season by an irrigation district or the Bureau of Reclamation. These procedures will likely have widespread adoption in the Central Great Plains.
New Mexico committee members prepared and delivered direct testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, chaired by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D, New Mexico), on the anticipated impacts and adaptations in preparing for climate change on New Mexicos water resources.
In Wyoming, Hansen and Peck were awarded a UW Energy Graduate Assistantship to support a graduate student for AY2011-12 to study "Coalbed Natural Gas By-Product Water and Agriculture: Potential for a Tradable Permits System to Alleviate Conflict. University of Wyoming, Office of Academic Affairs. Budget: $30,000 + tuition/fees/insurance for two years (2011-2013).
The impact of the USGS Ad Hoc Water Census Committee (Schaible-ERS is a member) has been substantial, developing concept papers, national water indicators, and federal Water Census priorities and implementation plans. In the REE Action Plan (2011) the USDA Water Team put in place (first ever) REE guideposts to meet USDA water goals.
Improving on-farm water-management is increasingly more critical to a sustainable future for irrigated agriculture. At ERS, Schaible, Kim, and Aillery (CJAE, 2010) extend current economic models to evaluate the merits of producer adoption of improved irrigation production systems, improving the ability to assess climate change impacts on a sustainable irrigated agriculture sector.
The EIB (2011) and Ag Indicators at a Glance (2011) (Schaible-ERS products) demonstrate that there is a road path to a sustainable future for irrigated agriculture. Shifting on-farm water conservation policy to an irrigation production system focus and integrating it with institutional mechanisms (conserved water-right provisions, water banks, and option and contingent water markets) will also enhance sustainability.
In Arizona, the outreach and publications of Colby and colleagues have helped make water managers more aware of temporary water transactions as a cost-effective supply reliability option. They continue to see more examples of dry year leases, dry year options, water banking and other innovative arrangements used to help get cities, environmental programs and industries through drought. These researchers efforts improve cost effectiveness in various aspects of supply reliability arrangements, particularly on the costs of monitoring and enforcing irrigation forbearance agreements.
In California, Dinar received a grant from U of Arizona through a collaborator on groundwater institutions ($26,000).
Goemans work on utility data reporting requirements in Colorado will lead to more consistent and comprehensive data collection from utilities (required for the next 10 years) which will lead to (a) better statewide planning and (b) enhanced ability to disseminate water conservation research specific to individual utility needs.
State regulators used Goemans survey of Colorado water utilities to determine which conservation research projects should be funded over the next few years.
In Illinois, an intended outcome of Brozovics research is to develop a decision support system for market mechanisms to reallocate groundwater pumping to maintain economic activity and environment. Research to date suggests that simple tradable permit schemes for groundwater pumping should be able to maintain streamflow while increasing farm profitability.
Brozovic and Andos research in Big Bureau Creek, Illinois, suggests that in that region, a nitrogen market involving wastewater treatment plants and agricultural land could cost-effectively reduce nitrogen loading to rivers.
In Kansas, a review of water policy studies linked previous research efforts on the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas with current collaborations that are ongoing with regional water planners. The results of two recent collaborative studies were presented, which gave estimates of impacts of alternative policies on aquifer saturated thickness, water use, farm income, and regional economic activity.
Also in Kansas, Peterson found that farmers respond heterogeneously to nonprice attributes in PES contracts. Nonprice features such as a complex enrollment process or a fine for noncompliance will deter participation, thus creating significant transaction costs. Using this information, future PES schemes can be designed with contractual features that attract participation from particular targeted groups.
In Missouri, McCann supervised the completed M.S. (Agricultural and Applied Economics) graduate thesis of Jade Arocha entitled, "The Role of Choice Architecture in Toilet Design: A Behavioral Economics Approach to Water Conservation."
New Mexico researchers are examining the economic costs of sustaining New Mexicos aquifers through measures such as purchasing water rights from irrigated agriculture that would be used to recharge regional aquifers.
In Wyoming, Hansen and colleagues were awarded a USDANRCS Wyoming Competitive Innovation Grant to study Development of a Market for Ecosystem Services in the Wyoming Green River Basin. Budget: $139,660 (2011-2013).
Hansen and colleagues were also awarded a US National Science Foundation Collaborative Research: CI-Water grant to study Cyberinfrastructure to Advance High-Performance Water Resource Modeling. Wyoming Project Director: F. Ogden $2,400,000 (2011-2014). This grant will improve Wyomings ability to model water management policies in the Green River Basin and further downstream into the Colorado River System.

Date of Annual Report: 12/20/2012

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/17/2012 - 10/19/2012
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2011 - 09/01/2012

Participants

Benson, Aaron (aaron.benson@ttu.edu) - Texas Tech University
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University;
Dinar, Ariel (adinar@ucr.edu) - University of California, Riverside;
Eiswerth, Mark (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of North Colorado;
Goemans, Chris (cgoemans@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Hansen, Kristi (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Vice-Chair);
Howitt, Richard(howitt@primal.ucdavis.edu) - University of California, Davis;
Kroll, Stephan (Stephan.kroll@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University;
Leonard, B. Rogers (rleonard@agecon.lsu.edu) - Louisiana State University;
Michelson, Ari (amichelsen@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas A&M University El Paso;
Parker, Doug (doug.parker@ucop.edu) - University of California Office of the President;
Peck, Dannele (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming (Chair);
Peterson, Jeff (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University;
Schaible, Glenn (schaible@ers.usda.gov) - USDA Economic Research Service;
Schoengold, Karina (kschoengold2@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska (Secretary);
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho;

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes of W2190 Meeting
Submitted by Karina Schoengold
October 17-19, 2012
Riverside, California

This is the fourth annual meeting of W2190, held on October 17-19, 2012.

Officers for the past year: Chair Dannele Peck, Wyoming; Vice-Chair Kristi Hansen, Wyoming; Secretary Karina Schoengold, Nebraska

October 17, 2012: Free Public Symposium Water Policy in the West 4:00-6:00 pm
Sponsored by the Water Science and Policy Center at the University of California, Riverside.

Presentations:
1) U.S. Irrigated Agriculture: Trends and Challenges in the Face of Emerging Demands
Presenter: Glenn Schaible (USDA Economic Research Service)
2) Texas State 50-year Water Plans and Policies
Presenter: Ari Michelsen (Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center)
3) Managing Californias Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation
Presenter: Ellen Hanak (Public Policy Institute of California)

Public session participants:
Approximately 50 people attended the session. In addition to the W2190 members those attending included individuals associated with the following groups:
University of California, Riverside
Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority
Western Riverside Council of Governments
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Kallisto Greenhouses
Western Municipal Water District
USDA -US Salinity Laboratory
Jurupa Community Services District

October 18, 2012, Morning Session

8:30-9:00 AM: Introductions: Everyone in the group introduced themselves and Ariel welcomed us to the University of California-Riverside.

Dannele reviewed the midterm NIMSS review of the W2190 project. Most of the review was very positive and noted the high activity with grants and excellent publication record for the group. The reviewers did challenge the members of the group to do a better job of developing collaboration with multistate projects. A discussion followed about the possible topics and mechanisms that the group could use to develop and show greater collaboration. One difficulty in developing multistate projects is that the funding for W2190 covers the cost of the group meeting but does not provide enough funding for larger projects. However, there are some topics that are common themes across the different states. For example: groundwater management, rule curves. A unified discussion of drought may be a good topic to focus on for many of the states in the group. Another possibility is to put together a special issue of a journal. Dannele Peck and Jeff Peterson are associate editors of the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research. A special issue with submissions from many of the members of W2190 is a good way to provide joint impact (see next item for more details). Other ideas included organizing session(s) at UCOWR, the Water for Food conference at the University of Nebraska, the World Water Forum, or another venue. This would allow us to bring together outcomes from our individual work. This needs to be with groups other than professional economics association meetings to have a broad impact.

The midterm NIMSS review also suggested that the members of the group could do a better job of connecting with stakeholders. The fact that many group members do outreach work with stakeholders that is not reported on the form was raised. We need to do a better job of highlighting our connections and interactions with stakeholders. The public forum the previous night was an excellent example of reaching out to stakeholders.

J. Peterson and D. Peck: discussion of special issue for JNRPR. Dr. Chennat Gopalakrishnan (Gopal) is a long time W2190 member and the Chief Editor of the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research. The journal is intended for a multidisciplinary social science audience. Dannele is an Associate Editor and Jeff is the Book Review Editor. Gopal approached Jeff and Dannele about putting together a special issue on water resource related policy analysis. Jeff discussed a possible theme of Climate Change, Water, and Agriculture (can negotiate this). This will be a short turnaround manuscripts need to be submitted by January 2013 with a final publication date in mid-late 2013. The goal is to have 6-8 manuscripts of 6000-8000 words each.

Discussion of next proposal for the group: We have two more years on the current project but we will need to start preparing next year. Rogers Leonard mentioned that the approval process is taking longer than it used to which means that the standard 12 months may not be sufficient and we should plan for 18 months for the development of the proposal and the approval process. K. Hansen reminded the group that last year we agreed to put together an ad-hoc group to help put together the new proposal. The group discussed the fact that next years meeting will have a primary goal of defining the main goals for the new project. A. Michelsen suggested that it is important to have at least one non-economist on the ad-hoc group. Concerns were raised about the reporting requirements by NIFA and how those limit reports.

R. Leonard mentioned that including Louisiana can add to the depth of expertise and work in the group by addressing more water policies across the U.S. For the next proposal the group might want to consider changing the name to include all water and not just western water. Despite concerns mentioned by group members, Rogers reiterated that reporting requirements by NIFA (including proposal limitations) cannot be changed. However, there are online presentations that help describe how to report impacts and outcomes.

Dannele reminded us to keep the goal of developing collaborations in mind for the rest of the meeting. Some ideas that were suggested during the meeting include the following:
Grant Cardon suggested a special issue on case studies on the successful adoption of better practices/technologies. Another idea is a general myths article on common myths related to water. Grant did this in Colorado and Richard and others have done this in California (California has an excellent website with the information).

There was some discussion about the connection many of the participating states have with the Colorado River. One idea is to develop an integrated product for the river. Ari asked if international participants (Mexico) are allowed with the USDA project and Rogers confirmed that anyone can be included.

9:00 am: State Reports (see below for details).
10:00 am: Break in the state reports for a short presentation by Karina Schoengold about a new project to develop a groundwater trading market in the Republican River Basin in Nebraska. The project involves three W2190 members (Schoengold - Nebraska, Brozovic - Illinois, and Speir - NMFS)
10:30 am: State Reports continued.
12:00 pm: Lunch

October 18, 2012, Afternoon Session
1:00-6:00 pm: Organized field trip to the Coachella Valley near the Salton Sea. We visited the Prime Time office where we learned about the development of irrigation and agricultural production in the region. We visited several fields with the owner of Prime Time and saw a large field of bell peppers that is irrigated solely with groundwater. We also saw several fields of date trees and a large field of irrigated lettuce. Most of the irrigation in the area is surface water stored in small ponds before being distributed through the irrigation system to the crops.

October 19, 2012, Morning Session
8:30 AM: D. Peck and J. Peterson reminded the group of the possibility of a special issue of the JNRPR. J. Peterson said that several members have discussed papers that could be included and he and Dannele will be in touch with more details soon.

8:45 AM: Glenn Schaible presented an overview of the new Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey (FRIS). The FRIS instrument is being revised for the 2013 year. Previous years had separated horticulture and irrigator surveys. The new survey is longer but has combined the two groups so that the number of questions specific to irrigators has been reduced. Glenn distributed copies of the 2008 FRIS and a document highlighting the differences in the 2008 and 2013 surveys. Richard Howitt asked why the survey doesnt collect information on inputs other than irrigation. Having only partial information makes it impossible to estimate an irrigated production function. Glenn said that he will add our group to the suggested review group for the survey instrument.

9:00 AM: Identification of meeting location and date for next year. Grant Cardon has offered to host the 2013 meeting in Salt Lake City. There are a number of issues that can be highlighted during the meeting. Rural/urban transfers and conflicts over water, various types of irrigated agricultural production, and general issues of water transfers are all important issues in Utah. Ari Michelsen suggested including a trip to the Utah State water lab as part of the meeting. Dannele Peck mentioned that having a stakeholder/outreach session would be a good idea. Everyone agreed that the public meeting Ariel Dinar organized at UC-Riverside was very good. Glenn Schaible mentioned that mid-October can be difficult for travel for federal employees to travel due to year-end budget issues. Dannele proposed that we hold the meeting on October 23-25, 2013 in Salt Lake City. Karina agreed to send out an email about the date to ensure there arent any major conflicts.

Incoming Secretary: Dannele Peck motioned and Karina Schoengold seconded naming Aaron Benson as the incoming secretary for the group. The group unanimously approved the motion.

Ad-hoc committee for the next multi-state proposal: Grant Cardon, Dannele Peck, Ariel Dinar, and Glenn Schaible agreed to serve on the ad-hoc committee to start putting together ideas for the next proposal. Glenn cannot fly anywhere to meet but will work electronically with the group. Garth Taylor mentioned that Glenns input will be valuable with his insight from working with ERS-USDA. Karina Schoengold suggested that Frank Ward might provide valuable assistance and agreed to contact him about participating in the committee.

9:30 AM: State reports continued.
10:30 AM: Presentation by Richard Howitt and Ari Michelsen on Advances in Hydro-Economic Modeling and Policy Applications joint with James Booker and Robert Young.

12:00 PM: Lunch and meeting officially adjourned. Information discussion followed.

State reports:

California: On June 16-19th (2014) UC-Riverside is going to host an international conference on salinity. It will bring together people from industry, farmer organizations, economists, and a variety of stakeholder groups.

Ariel Dinar discussed two goals for his research group at UCR. First, they are developing state/federal/international work on wastewater. There is a need for more collaboration and a greater emphasis on the importance of this issue. Second, they are developing an economy-wide model where water is the driving force that connects between the different sectors. The goal of the work is to make the model flexible enough to allow researchers to examine shocks via different water policies at different levels.

There are several projects of relevance to the group: First, Ariel Dinar and colleagues are working with the avocado industry to understand how farmers respond to droughts, water supply cutbacks, and poor water quality. They are conducting a survey of 6000 avocado growers (70,000 acres). Some of the responses indicate that using portable desalination facilities and cutting the trees down are possible options. They have submitted a grant to develop decision support tools to help the growers deal with these problems. Second, Ariel is working on experimental economics work with groundwater management. Finally, Ariel is working with a graduate student on the decoupling of the electricity subsidy for groundwater with water use in Mexico. The Mexican government has tried to decouple the payments and it has not been successful.

Colorado: Chris Goemans reported that Colorado is working on a state-wide water management plan. Planning started in 2003 and the state realized that different areas were all planning on using the same sources for long-term water supply. Plans currently use a similar system as Texas to estimate water demand. They estimate that total water use = per capita use * population with no impact considered for pricing or conservation. There has been a lot of time spent estimating the impacts of the 2011-2012 drought using a producer survey. Chris is working on sending a second year of the survey out to producers.

Stephan Kroll announced that the Agricultural Economics department is searching for a new Assistant Professor of Natural resource economics and has funding for generous stipends for five new PhD students.

Mark Eisworth reported that since 2003 there has been a lot of discussion within the state and attempts to coordinate people at different institutions who are all working on water issues. Mark reported that he was recently at Colorado College for a presentation on managing the Colorado River Basin. Undergraduate students recently put together a video where they followed the river from the headwaters to the end (spending as much time on the water as possible). Mark suggested that this could be a model for the W2190 group. We could develop a video where we look at the Colorado River Basin (or another basin) and have interviews with experts (i.e., group members) along the river basin.

Ari Michelsen mentioned that a scholarship and lecture series have been established to honor Bob Young at Colorado State University.

Idaho: Garth Taylor is working on groundwater externalities. The Bureau of Reclamation is interested in a basin wide benefit cost analysis. Garth is working with someone to use CGE modeling to measure impacts and benefits of changing river management policies. He recently presented a paper that showed that irrigation conservation has led to an increase of 15-30% more water use in the Snake River Plain.

Idaho is also having problems with the financial costs of sewage treatment. Many small cities, towns, and communities are bankrupted from purchasing new facilities. They are constrained by law and small communities are not able to take advantage of the huge economies of scale that exist with treatment facilities. Idaho has the only county that has actually gone bankrupt from these costs and some places have a cost of $4000-$5000 per household per year. Chris Goemans mentioned that the Western Governors Association did a report and found a large estimate for the costs of necessary new infrastructure. Ari Michelsen mentioned that cutbacks in revolving funds will only make the situation worse.

Kansas: Jeff Peterson is also reporting for Bill Golden. Bill has been working closely with policy changes related to water law and rights in Kansas. Garth Taylor mentioned that there is a good article on Bill Golden in Circle of Blue. Governor Sam Brownbeck has made groundwater conservation a priority. There used to be a use it or lose it clause for groundwater rights that has been removed to encourage conservation. Kansas has also introduced a five-year flexible plan (water rights are allocated over a 5-year period) which makes it easier to create water banks. Producers can deposit unused allocation into a water bank. A program that buys out water rights from farmers has been expanded.

Jeff Peterson and Nathan Hendricks wrote a paper on groundwater irrigation demand. They compared water reduction policies and found that it was much more expensive to fully buy out water rights than to allow trading or to buy out marginal water use from more irrigators. Jeff has also been studying the incentives to participate in conservation programs like EQIP. Producers werent signing up for the program because of the difficulty in the process. Jeff has been doing experimental work to measure the willingness to join the program and the additional payment that producers demand for the transaction costs involved with joining the program.

Louisiana: Rogers Leonard is a new member of the group. Louisiana has fewer problems than in much of the western United States. It has 40 60 inches of precipitation per year but there is high variation and much of it comes in a few events. The issues of greatest importance for the state are wetlands protection, seafood production (aquaculture), and coastal restoration. Much of the work is on salt water, not fresh water. Other researchers working on water issues in Louisiana include John Westra (hypoxia in the Gulf Coast), Rex Caffey (CNREP), Bill Branch, Ronald Sheffield, and Brian LeBlanc. Louisiana is trying to put together a state water plan that incorporates groundwater/surface water interactions into water management. Some of the aquifers are suffering from overuse. The majority of groundwater for irrigation is used for rice but the petrochemical industry uses the majority of the water. There are issues on the west side of the state with Texas but overall there is more of a problem with water quality management than water quantity. Other problems include saltwater intrusion. LSU is retooling one of the research centers in the state to focus on fresh water resources. Researchers are participating in regional projects with Arkansas and Mississippi.

Texas: Aaron Benson has two relevant projects. One is a model of reservoir management to determine the effects of early snowmelt due to climate change predictions. Other work has examined this change by assuming some additional cost but not actually estimating an associated change in cost due to early snowmelt and increased dust in the snow (water quality issue). The second project is work with a graduate student to estimate values of ecosystem services from playa lakes. They are trying to estimate if playa lakes near a well affect the drawdown. If they do, it should benefit the well. Estimates show that there are benefits but they are small. Other ecosystem benefits such as providing habitat along a major flyway are probably the most important ecosystem service but are difficult to measure.

Groundwater districts in Texas are charged with setting a goal for the future. Districts want to see a minimum of 50% of water remaining in 50 years but the Texas courts have said that the districts cannot restrict use without reimbursement.

Ari Michelsen is reporting for the team (Girisha Ganjegunte, Thomas Marek, Ron Lacewell, Ari Michelsen). Girisha has been working on the salt tolerance of different crops. He is collaborating with Grant Cardon on some of this work. They are also evaluating water markets in the Lower/Middle Rio Grande. They are also working with the Upper Rio Grande to help manage water salinity. Ari is working on the organizational side of several conferences. The AWRA in Jacksonville, Florida will focus on IWRM. UCOWR is meeting in June 2013 in Tahoe. Finally Ari is on the organizing committee for a US-China conference in Beijing in September 2013. The focus on the conference is Water and Megacities.

Ari has been working on a multistate project with Richard Howitt, James Booker, and Bob Young. Some of the work was presented in the morning session. He has also been working on the energy-water nexus. He gave a presentation on the importance of energy for water and water for energy at UT-Austin recently. A report on the importance of water in the US economy should be out early next year. There will be a session in Washington D.C. on the findings in the report. The work involved many federal and state agencies as partners.

Ari announced that the Texas A&M AgriLife (El Paso) Station has received approval to hire an Assistant or Associate Professor in water resource economics. Texas A&M is also planning to expand its role in water research.

Utah: Grant Cardon said that he is much more of a soils generalist at USU than he was at Colorado State. Salinity problems have gotten bad very quickly in places with a closed basin in an arid climate. Utah received some earmark money to work on drought issues. Researchers have been examining both quantity and quality issues related to drought (e.g., salinity). They are working on mapping and evaluating the use of spatial information to measure reduced quantity and quality by location.

Grant is also working on the water-energy nexus. He is working with larger coal fired power plants to determine what to do with cooling tower water. The water is too saline to be evaporated and needs to be flushed out but then there is a problem in dealing with saline wastewater. An early idea was to use a managed accumulation process for saline water that still allows it to be used for irrigation. Dannele mentioned that there is some interest in using the water from coal bed methane for irrigation but there are concerns over the long-term effects on soil quality and a need to manage the accumulation. Ari mentioned that Girisha has also been working on this in Texas.

Grant is also working on a project to get more water efficient native plants into landscaping and to identify which plants are most saline tolerant. He is working with an urban water research center than communicates with consumers and landscaping businesses to educate them on incorporating these plants into landscaping. He is also working with water management in Lebanon on a project that is working to improve practices and teach local people to manage the river system.

Wyoming: Kristi Hansen is working on a couple of projects. A new MS student is interested in examining how the Bureau of Reclamation manages reservoirs on the Platte River. Kristi is working on developing a payment for ecosystem services program in SW Wyoming where energy (fracking) companies can pay landowners for wildlife habitat. Kristi and Dannele Peck are working on a project with coal bed methane. The project is examining whether water quality markets could alleviate some of the problems with providing good water quality downstream. Kristi is also involved with two new large EPSCOR grants. One is to purchase fast computing power. The other is to develop a research program linking surface/subsurface watershed hydrology, geophysics, remote sensing, and computational modeling. This will facilitate policy analysis on Wyoming water issues. For example, an issue that could be addressed is measuring the economic impact if there is curtailment in the upper Colorado basin states. The work is being done with Utah State (David Rosenberg). Ari mentioned that its important to work with Matt McKee and the Utah Water Lab. Ariel mentioned that Kurt Schwabe and Ken Baerenklau are working on water supply reliability and reservoir management with the manager of the Santa Ana River Basin.

Accomplishments

W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. In New Mexico, researchers have estimated economic values of water in irrigated agriculture under a range of crop prices, crop costs, drip irrigation subsidies, and climate scenarios. New Mexico researchers are also cooperating with the U.S. Geological survey to identify irrigation institutions that promote food security and farm income in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members in Texas are doing research on the salt tolerance of five bioenergy crops and their performance under elevated salinity conditions. They also continue to use Electromagnetic Induction (EMI) to determine the spatial distribution of salinity in affected fields. This research is being carried out in collaboration with B. Leinauer at New Mexico State University, G. Cardon at Utah State University (fellow W2190 member), and local growers. Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. In Arizona, researchers developed a framework for analyzing the economics of advanced remote sensing techniques to measure and monitor water "savings" in irrigation forbearance agreements. In California, A. Dinar organized the Southern California Groundwater & Climate Workshop: Sustainability and Resilience of the Southern California Groundwater. The workshop was held on February 22, 2012 at UC-Riverside and there were 120 participants. California researchers have also completed lab experiments on common pool resource management under uncertainty. In conjunction with the Colorado Water Conservation Board and Colorado Department of Agriculture, Colorado researchers conducted a survey of agricultural producers regarding impacts of the 2011 regional drought. Members also developed a model of Colorado agriculture and used it to model impacts of the 2011 drought on Colorado producers. N. Brozovic-U of Illinois, C. Speir-National Marine Fisheries Service and a student analyzed streamflow and habitat impacts of seasonal agricultural groundwater pumping in California. Demand for irrigation groundwater in the Kansas High Plains was estimated using panel data. The cost effectiveness of water conservation policies was then simulated. Kansas members used a theoretical model of common pool groundwater use to examine the effect of irrigated farm size, which implies a greater spatial extent of access to aquifer resources. Michigan members developed a suite of maps and interactive modeling outputs for Coca-Cola and The Nature Conservancy showing optimal locations for protection and improvement of water quantity and quality. A web-accessible Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool to manage high capacity (>70 gal/min) withdrawals was programmed by IWR. All new wells capacity and location are registered. Michigan also produced a webinar "A Sustainable Approach to Water Resources and Climate Change Planning." It identifies relevant challenges and provides recommendations on how to address these challenges. Missouri researchers received a grant from the NIFA Integrated Water Quality program ($414,000) to look at adoption of nutrient and stormwater runoff management practices (e.g. rain barrels) in Hinkson Creek, Missouri. In Nebraska, K. Schoengold, Y. Ding, and R. Headlee are evaluating whether ad-hoc disaster payments create a moral hazard problem, in which producers are less likely to self-manage risk after receiving payment in recent years. K. Schoengold and other colleagues at Nebraska are also evaluating the value of the High Plains aquifer (including option value) to determine optimal resource extraction under price and climate uncertainty. R. Hearne developed a cost minimization model for recycling and transporting wastewater from North Dakota oil drilling wells. In New Mexico, B. Hurd completed a survey of acequia members on perceptions and issues related to water use, community challenges and adaptation to drought and population change stressors. Results were published in both a report and a publication. B. Hurd also extended the Rio Grande Hydro-economic model to examine crop-mix effects under scenarios of climate change. This work was Mani Rouhi-Rads MS thesis project. Researchers from Texas examined the impacts of biofuel crop production on water quality and shared the results at the Universities Council on Water Resources meeting. A. Michelsen from Texas was an invited participant, along with other W-2190 members (Howitt, Young), in the USEPA Workshop on The Importance of Water to the US Economy. At the USDA-ERS, G. Schaible examined the challenge for agricultural water conservation in the face of increasing water scarcity due to emerging water demands and expected impacts from climate change. Results were communicated to the federal water conservation policy arena through the new USDA-ERS website for "Irrigation and Water Use." G. Schaibles research on "The Value of U.S. Irrigated Agriculture" helped advance the U.S. EPA water program and its forthcoming report addressing "The Importance of Water to the U.S. Economy. The 2011 Washington State Legislative Report: "Columbia River Basin Long-Term Water Supply and Demand Forecast was completed and submitted to Washington State Department of Ecology. Researchers also initiated the Watershed Integrated Systems Dynamics Modeling (WISDM) project and the BioEarth: Regional Earth Systems Modeling project (see http://www.cereo.wsu.edu/wisdm/ and http://www.cereo.wsu.edu/bioearth/). In Wyoming, D. Peck received an Editors Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for Water Resources Research (2011) for reviewing two manuscripts directly related to W2190's objectives 2 & 3. Farm Foundation President, Neil Conklin, also asked Peck for insights about Climate change impacts on agriculture when future scenarios are uncertain" for a Canadian Agricultural Policy Conference. Objective 3: Investigate Alternative Water Policy and Management Institutions. B. Colby and colleagues are finalizing a new statistical model explaining variation in three measures of water transaction activity over time, covering most of the western United States. Arizona members have produced six stakeholder guidebooks on effective voluntary transactions between agriculture, municipalities and environmental programs as regional adaptation strategy. A. Dinar is continuing to provide input to a groundwater assessment study by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Researchers in Colorado have conducted experiments to examine the impact on residential water demand of alternative pricing structures and information about their households water use. In Idaho, G. Taylor presented research on The Impact of Irrigated Agriculture on the Rule Curve to the Mid-Snake Water Management and Planning Board. Rule curves are a method by which the Army Corp of Engineers and BOR govern reservoir pools for flood control. G. Taylor has also conducted a cost-benefit of alternative management responses to hydrologic externalities. N. Brozovic and other Illinois researchers in agricultural economics, civil engineering and sociology modeled the economic and environmental consequences of groundwater management policies in Nebraska. J. Peterson and Kansas colleagues estimated a mixed logit model from stated preference data on payments for environmental service contracts. The model estimated the aggregate impacts of transaction costs. Michigan researchers are contributing to work on water quality and nonpoint source pollution. The project is documenting: a) social/economic/political factors contributing to water quality impairments; b) role of social movements and WQ; c) social strategies for better WQ management. L. McCann supervised an MS thesis at Missouri on behavioral economics and toilet use. The research resulted in a presentation and a paper. K. Schoengold (Nebraska), N. Brozovic (Illinois), and a graduate student are examining existing groundwater trading in the Upper Republican Natural Resource District. Short term impacts will show if trading behavior can be predicted using hydrological characteristics of the aquifer, well and soil characteristics, and input/output prices. K. Schoengold and W2190 members Brozovic and Speir are implementing a pilot groundwater trading program in Nebraska, which should provide financial benefit and reduce weather risk to producers. In North Dakota, B. Hearne assessed transboundary water management institutions to address US and Canadian conflict related to the Devils Lake outlet to Sheyenne River and Lake Winnipeg Basin. He also assessed the impacts of growth and environmental policy on water quality in Korean rivers. In New Mexico, F. Ward has analyzed economic, hydrologic, and food security impacts of alternative methods of allocating river and canal waters during drought periods for Afghanistan and Iraq. Texas members provided reviews and inputs to the update of the 50 year State Water Plan for the Far West Texas Regional Planning Group. A. Michelsen (Texas) worked with fellow W2190 members (J. Booker,Siena College; R. Howitt, UC Davis; R. Young, Colorado State) on a 25-year review and future directions in research on the economics and modeling of water resources and policies. A. Michelsen also organized ten international sessions on Integrated Water Resources Management for the 6th World Water Forum. At USDA-ERS, G. Schaible wrote EIB # 99, addressing "Water Conservation in Irrigated Agriculture." It outlines the challenge for agricultural water conservation from on farm and watershed/institutional perspectives. The document was an output of the USDA REE 2012 Action Plan, assisting REE in meeting USDA's mission goals for "Water Availability and Quality." In Wyoming, D. Peck, Associate Editor for Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research (Editor, C. Gopalakrishnan, retired W2190 member), coordinated the review of 3 water/climate manuscripts. K. Hansen is leading a project to scope ecosystem services markets for wildlife/riparian habitat/water in the upper Green River Basin in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund who is piloting a habitat credit trading market.

Publications

Amosson, Steve and Thomas Marek. 2012. 2016 Panhandle Regional Water Plan Draft Agricultural Water Demand Projections. Presentation to the Panhandle Water Planning Group - Panhandle Regional Planning Commission. Amarillo, Texas, August 9, 2012. Arocha, Jade and Laura McCann. The Role of Behavioral Economics in Dual-Flush Toilet Design. JAWWA (accepted subject to revision). How Do Homebuyers Value Different Types of Green Space? Rosalind H. Bark, Daniel E. Osgood, Bonnie G. Colby, and Eve B. Halper Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 36(2):395415, 2011 Bartholic, Jon. 2012. Navigating a new course for water resource policy and management, Michigan State University Futures Magazine, MSU Global Water Initiative, volume 30 Nos 1 & 2. pg 21-26. Bastian, C.T., S.T. Gray, D.E. Peck, J.P. Ritten, K.M. Hansen, J.M. Krall and S.I. Paisley. 2012. The nature of climate science for the Rocky Mountain West: implications for economists trying to help agriculture adapt. Western Economics Forum 10(2):23-32. Booker, J.F., R.E. Howitt, A.M. Michelsen and R.A. Young. 2012. Economics and the Modeling of Water Resources and Policies. Natural Resource Modeling Journal. 25th Anniversary Special Issue. 25(1): 168-218. Botelho, A., A. Dinar, L. M. Costa Pinto, A. Rapoport, Time and Uncertainty in Resource Dilemmas: Equilibrium Solutions and Experimental Results, Water Science and Policy Center Working Paper 01-0912, September 2012. Botelho, A., A. Dinar, L. M. Costa Pinto, A. Rapoport, Linking Appropriation and Provision of Public Goods Decreases Rate of Destruction of the Commons, Water Science and Policy Center Working Paper 02-1012, October 2012. Bulatewicz, T., A. Allen, J.M. Peterson, D.R. Steward, S. Staggenborg, and S.M. Welch. The Simple Script Wrapper for OpenMI: Enabling Interdisciplinary Water Studies. Environmental Modeling and Software. In press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2012.07.006 Cherry, T.L., S. Kallbekken and S. Kroll. 2012. The Acceptability of Efficiency-enhancing Environmental Taxes, Subsidies and Regulation: An Experimental Investigation, Environmental Science and Policy 2012, 16/1, 90-96. Bonnie Colby and various co-authors, University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Prioritizing Water Acquisitions for Cost-Effectiveness, September, 2012 (under review) Bonnie Colby and various co-authors, University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Measurement, Monitoring and Enforcement of Irrigation Forbearance Agreements, August, 2012 Bonnie Colby and various co-authors, University of Arizona, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Entendiendo el Valor del Agua en la Agricultura, October, 2011 Contor, B. A. and R. Garth Taylor. Why Improving Irrigation Efficiency Increases Total Volume of Consumptive Use. Irrigation and Drainage. 2012. Cox, C., G.K. Ganjegunte, D. Borrok, V. Lougheed, L. Ma, L. Jin. 2011. Evaluation of soil sustainability along the Lower Rio Grande River: Changes in salt loading and organic nutrients due to farming practices. Proceedings of the AGU Fall Meeting, 1 page [on CD-ROM], December 5-9, 2011, San Francisco, California, Abstract. M Dagnino and F.A. Ward (2012). Economics of Agricultural Water Conservation: Empirical Analysis and Policy Implications. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 124, December, 2012 Dinar, A., D. F. Larson, and S. M. Rahman, The Clean Development Mechanism: An Early History of Unanticipated Outcomes, World Scientific Publishers, 2012 (in Press). Dinar, A., D. F. Larson, and J. A. Frisbie, How California can take advantage of the Clean De-velopment Mechanism to achieve its AB 32 goals by 2020. California Agriculture. (Accepted for Publication, May 21, 2012). DiNatale, K., A. Hickman, C. Goemans, S. Kroll, H. Thompson, and B. Dereume. 2012. Water Partnerships: An Evaluation of Alternative Agricultural Water Transfer Methods in the South Platte Basin. Colorado Water Conservation Board Project Report. Ding, Y. and J.M. Peterson. Comparing the Cost-Effectiveness of Water Conservation Policies in a Depleting Aquifer: A Dynamic Analysis of the Kansas High Plains. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 44(May 2012): 223-234. http://purl.umn.edu/123781 Elbakidze, L., X Shen, G. Taylor, S. Mooney, Spatio-temporal Analysis of Prior Appropriations Water Calls, Water Resources Research (2012), VOL. 48, W00L07, 13 PP., doi:10.1029/2011WR010609 Esteban, E. and A. Dinar, Cooperative Management of Groundwater Resources in the Presence of Environmental Externalities. Environmental and Resource Economics. (Accepted for publication, June 8, 2012). Ganjegunte, G.K., J.A. Clark, and Y. Wu. 2011. Irrigation with Treated Urban Wastewater for Bioenergy Crop Production in the Far West Texas. Proceedings of the AGU Fall Meeting, 1 page [on CD-ROM], December 5-9, 2011, San Francisco, California, Abstract. Ganjegunte, G.K., J.A. Clark, and Y. Wu. 2011. Feasibility of Treated Urban Wastewater Irrigation for Bioenergy Crop Production in the Far West Texas. Proceedings of the ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings, 1 page [on CD-ROM], October 16-19, 2011, San Antonio, Texas, Abstract Ganjegunte G.K., J.A. Clark, G. Peterson, and J.A. Da Silva. 2011. Beneficial Effects of Cellulosic Bioenergy Crops On Soil Salinity and Sodicity Management. Proceedings of the ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings, 1 page [on CD-ROM], October 16-19, 2011, San Antonio, Texas, Abstract. Ganjegunte, G.K., Z. Sheng, and J.A. Clark. 2012. Evaluating the Accuracy of Soil Water Sensors for Irrigation Scheduling to Conserve Freshwater. Applied Water Science. 2: 119-125. Ganjegunte, G.K., Z. Sheng, and J.A. Clark. 2012. Soil Salinity and Sodicity Appraisal by Electromagnetic Induction in Irrigated Cotton Soils. Land Degradation & Development. (Accepted, In Press, DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1162). Goemans, C., M. Costanigro, and J. Stone. 2012. The Interaction of Water Restriction and Pricing Policies: Econometric, Managerial, and Distributional Implications. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, Volume 4, Issue 1, pages 61-77. Griffin, R.C., D.E. Peck and J. Maestu Unturbe. 2013. Introduction: myths, principles and issues in water trading. In J. Maestu Unturbe (ed.) Global Water Crisis: How Can Water Trading be Part of the Solution? New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group. (In press) Gunter, A., C. Goemans, J. Pritchett, and D. Thilmany. 2012. The Economic Impact of the 2011 Drought on Southern Colorado: A combined input-output and EDMP analysis. Colorado Water Conservation Board Project Report. Hansen, K., R. Howitt, and J. Williams. 2013. Water Trades in the Western US: Risk, Speculation, and Property Rights. In J. Maestu Unturbe (ed.) Global Water Crisis: How Can Water Trading Be Part of the Solution? New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group. (In press) Hansen, K. and A. Schroeder. 2012. Montana v. Wyoming Before the U.S. Supreme Court. Barnyards & Backyards newspaper insert (March 2012). University of Wyoming Extension. Hearne, R. 2011. Chiles Water Markets Continue to Evolve. Water Resources Impact. 13(5): 12-14. Hearne, R. "North Dakota Can Grow Responsibly" Opinon in AGweek. 11 June 2012. p4. Hendricks, N.P. and J.M. Peterson. Fixed Effects Estimation of the Intensive and Extensive Margins of Irrigation Water Demand. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 37(April 2012): 1-19. http://purl.umn.edu/122312 Hines, S. Packham, J. and G. Taylor. The Contribution of Agriculture to the Magic Valley Economy. Impact University of Idaho Cooperative Extension. 2012. http://www.extension.uidaho.edu/impacts. Hines, Steve, Joel Packham, Phil Watson, Garth Taylor. Contribution of Agribusiness to the Magic Valley Economy, 2010. University of Idaho Extension CIS 1185. June 2012. Hines, Steve, Joel Packham, Phil Watson, Garth Taylor. Contribution of Agribusiness to the Magic Valley Economy. 2010. University of Idaho Extension Poster 1186. June 2012. Hurd, Brian, and Mani Rouhi-Rad (in press). Estimating Economic Effects of Changes in Climate and Water Availability, Climatic Change. Hurd, B. and J. Coonrod. 2012. Hydrological and economic consequences of climate change in the Upper Rio Grande region, Climate Research, 53:103-118. doi: 10.3354/cr01092. Johnston, C.R., G.F. Vance, and G.K. Ganjegunte. 2012. Soil Property Changes Following Irrigation with CBNG Water: Role of Water Treatments, Soil Amendments, and Land Suitability. Land Degradation and Development. (Accepted, In Press, DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1132). Kuwayama, Y. and Brozovic, N., 2012, Analytical Hydrologic Models and the Design of Policy Instruments for Groundwater Quality Management, Hydrogeology Journal, v. 20(5), 957-972, DOI: 10.1007/s10040-012-0851-5. Leidner, A. J., Rister, M. E., Lacewell, R. D. and Sturdivant, A. W. (2011), The Water Market for the Middle and Lower Portions of the Texas Rio Grande Basin. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 47: 597610. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00527.x Loomis, J. Comparing Households Total Economic Values and Recreation Value of Instream Flow in an Urban River. Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy 1(1): 5-17. 2012. Madani, K. and A. Dinar. Non-Cooperative Institutions for Sustainable Common Pool Resource Management: Application to Groundwater. Ecological Economics. (Accepted for Publication, December 7, 2011), 74: 34-45. Madani, K. and A. Dinar, Cooperative Institutions for Sustainable Common Pool Resource Management: Application to Groundwater. Water Resources Research. (Accepted for publication, August 3, 2012). Marek, Thomas, Steve Amosson, and Bridget Guerrero. 2012. 2016 Panhandle Regional Water Plan Task 2 Report: Agricultural Water Demand Projections. Draft submitted to the Panhandle Water Planning Group for the Panhandle Regional Water Plan. August 3. 2012. 17pp. Mayagoitia, L., B. Hurd, J. Rivera, S. Guldan. 2012. Rural Community Perspectives on Preparedness and Adaptation to Climate-Change and Demographic Pressure, Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education. March (147:49-62). McKean, J. R. Donn Johnson, R.G. Taylor Three approaches to time valuation in recreation demand: A study of the Snake River recreation area in eastern Washington. J. Environmental Management 112 (2012) 321-329. McKean, John R, D. Johnson, and R G Taylor. Regional Economic Impacts of the Snake River Steelhead and Salmon Recovery. Society and Natural Resources 24: 569-583 2011. Michelsen, A.M. and F. Brelle. 2012. Balancing Multiple Uses Through Integrated Water Resources Management. Thematic Priority Report, 6th World Water Forum. Marseille, France. March. 23 pg. Michelsen, A.M., Booker, J.F., R.E. Howitt and R.A. Young. 2012. Integration and Evolution of Hydro-economic Modeling. American Water Resources Association Annual Conference. Jacksonville, FL, Nov. 12-15, 2012. (forthcoming) Michelsen, A.M., Booker, J.F., R.E. Howitt and R.A. Young. 2012. Advances in Hydro-economic Modeling and Policy Applications. Universities Council on Water Resources and National Institutes for Water Resources Annual Conference. Santa Fe, NM. July 17-19. Michelsen, A.M., T. McGuckin, R.D. Lacewell, B. Creel and Z. Sheng. 2012. Three-State Partnership to Improve Water Quality: The Rio Grande Coalition and Estimating Economic Benefits of Salinity Reduction. 2012 Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference. Portland, Oregon. May 20-24. Michelsen, A.M. 2012. American Water Resources Association Leadership and Activities in Integrated Water Resources Management. Summary in One Water Management: Perspectives. Edited by the Clean Water America Alliance. Washington, DC. Nelson, R., J. Pritchett and C. Goemans. 2012. Survey Summary: Farm and Ranch Managers Responses to the 2011 Drought. Colorado Water Conservation Board Project Report. A. Nikouei, M. Zibaei, and F.A. Ward (2012), Incentives to adopt irrigation water saving measures for wetlands preservation: An integrated basin scale analysis. Journal of Hydrology. 464465, 216232 Niu, G., D.S. Rodriguez, M. Mendoza, J. Jifon, and G.K. Ganjegunte. 2012. Responses of Jatropha curcas to drought and salt stresses. International Journal of Agronomy. Article ID 632026, DOI:10.1155/2012/632026 ONeil, G., Shortridge, A. 2012. Quantifying local flow-direction uncertainty. International Journal of Geographic Information Science. In press. Peck, D.E. and R.M. Adams. 2012. Farm-level impacts of climate change: alternative approaches for modeling uncertainty. In A. Dinar and R. Mendelsohn (eds.) Handbook on Climate Change and Agriculture. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire: Edward Elgar Publishing. Pham Do K. H., A. Dinar, and D. McKinney, Transboundary Water Management: Can Issue Linkage Help Mitigate Externalities? International Game Theory Review. (Accepted for Publication, December 18, 2011). Phillips, F. and A.M. Michelsen. 2012. Institutional and Salinity Issues on the Upper Rio Grande. Chapter 33 in Agricultural Salinity Assessment and Management. Editors, Wesley Wallender and Kenneth Tanji. Environmental Water Resources Institute, American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, VA. ASCE Manuals and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 71, 2nd Edition, 1033-1052. Pritchett, J., C. Goemans, and J. Thorvaldson. 2012. Water as a Crop: Are South Platte Farmers Willing to Participate in Innovative Leasing Arrangements? Colorado Water, Volume 28, Issue 5, pages 5-9. Qureshi, M.E., Reeson, A., Whitten, S., Reinelt, P. and Brozovic, N., 2012, Factors determining the economic value of groundwater, Hydrogeology Journal, v. 20(5), 821-829, DOI: 10.1007/s10040-012-0867-x. Reinelt, P., Brozovic, N., Qureshi, M.E., and Hellegers, P., 2012, Preface: Economics of groundwater management, Hydrogeology Journal, v. 20(5), 817-820, DOI: 10.1007/s10040-012-0878-7. Rister, M. Edward, Allen W. Sturdivant, Ronald D. Lacewell, and Ari M. Michelsen. Challenges and Opportunities for Water of the Rio Grande. Journal of Agricultural & Applied Economics, Vol. 43, August 2011, Number 3, pp 367-78. Saak, A.E. and J.M. Peterson. Groundwater Pumping by Heterogeneous Users. Hydrogeology Journal 20 (August 2012): 835-849. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10040-012-0854-2 Schaible, Glenn D. and Marcel P. Aillery. 2012. "Water Conservation in Irrigated Agriculture: Trends and Challenges in the Face of Emerging Demands," Economic Information Bulletin No. 99, ERS-USDA (September): 60p. At: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib-economic-information-bulletin/eib99.aspx. Schaible, Glenn D. and Marcel P. Aillery. 2012. "U.S. Irrigated Agriculture: Water Management and Conservation." Chapter in Ag. Res. & Envir. Indicators (AREI) - 2012 Edition, Economic Information Bulletin, No. 98, ERS-USDA, (August): pp. 29-32. At: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib-economic-information-bulletin/eib98.aspx. Schaible, Glenn D. and Marcel P. Aillery. 2012. "Improving Water-Use Efficiency Remains an Important Challenge for U.S. Irrigated Agriculture," Amber Waves Finding, Vol. 10, Issue 3, ERS-USDA (September). At: http://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012-september/improving-water-use.aspx. Schaible, Glenn D. and Marcel P. Aillery. 2012. Irrigation and Water Use. Webpage developed for the new ERS Website (July 19). At: http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-practices-management/irrigation-water-use.aspx. Schaible, Glenn D. [Contributor (one of many)]. 2012. USDA Research, Education, and Economics Action Plan. USDA-REE Office of the Under-Secretary (February): 41p. At: http://www.ree.usda.gov/ree/news/USDA_REE_Action_Plan_02-2012_2.pdf. Schaible, Glenn D. 2012. "The Value of U.S. Irrigated Agriculture: Conservation Challenges for a Sustainable Future." Invited Presentation at EPAs Technical Workshop on The Importance of Water to the U.S. Economy, (September 19), Washington DC. Smith, C.M., J.M. Peterson, J.C. Leatherman, and J.R. Williams. A Simulation of Factors Impeding Water Quality Trading. Journal of Regional Analysis and Planning. Accepted and forthcoming. Smith, C.M., J.C. Leatherman, J.M. Peterson, J.M. Crespi, and J. D. Roe. BMPs For Sale! Implications from a Case Study in BMP Auctions. Journal of Regional Analysis and Planning. Accepted and forthcoming. Smith, M., M. Arabi, and C. Goemans. 2012. Quantifying the Relationship between Irrigation Activities and Size of Wetlands in a Northern Colorado Watershed. Colorado Water, forthcoming. F.A. Ward, S.A. Amer, and F. Ziaee (2012). Water Allocation Rules in Afghanistan for Improved Food Security. Food Security: The Science, Sociology, and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, forthcoming. F.A. Ward (2012). Forging Sustainable Transboundary Water Sharing Agreements: Barriers and Opportunities, Water Policy, forthcoming. F.A. Ward, and M Pulido-Velazquez (2012). Economic Costs of Sustaining Water Supplies: Findings from the Rio Grande. Water Resources Management. DOI 10.1007/s11269-012-0055-8 F. A. Ward (2012). Costbenefit and water resources policy: a survey. Water Policy. 14 (2012) 250280. Wolfson, Lois. 2012. Multiple Impacts on Michigan Waters Possible Due to Climate Change. Lake Effect, June, 2012. Michigan Chapter, North American Lake Management Society. Pages: 2, 6. Wolfson, Lois. 2011. Invasive Phragmites Threatens Wetlands, Wildlife. Lake Effect, July 2011. Michigan Chapter, North American Lake Management Society. Pages: 7-8. Yoder, Jonathan, Washington State University. 2011. Columbia River Basin Long-Term Water Supply and Demand Forecast. Submitted to Washington State Department of Ecology. (http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/cwp/forecast/reports.html )

Impact Statements

Climate change and recurrent drought in the worlds dry places continue to inspire the search for economically attractive measures to conserve water. A study in New Mexico (F. Ward) analyzes water conservation practices in irrigated agriculture in North Americas Rio Grande. Findings indicate that increased subsidies for drip irrigation increase farm income, but can also raise crop water consumption.
Results to date in Texas indicate that salt tolerant cultivars of switchgrass, sorghum and canola produced as much biomass/seed yield under elevated salinity as they did under freshwater irrigation. Camelina did not perform well under elevated salinity. This research is being conducted with funds from the Sun-Grant and TX Bioenergy programs and is helping to identify improved crops.
Other work in Texas showed that soil salinity generally increased under irrigation with marginal quality water but sodicity remained under threshold, indicating that most of the salinity increase was due to solubilization of calcium salts, which should not impair soil permeability.
Texas research indicates that Electromagnetic Imaging (EMI) can provide accurate field scale soil salinity data at a high spatial resolution in less time than conventional methods. Field scale soil salinity distribution data by EMI method will help in the development of appropriate salinity management practices.
Arizona researchers have produced six stake holder guidebooks on implementing effective voluntary transactions between agriculture, municipalities and environmental programs as regional adaptation strategy. Due to outreach by Arizona colleagues, the economics of remote sensing to measure and monitor reduced consumptive use is now more widely understood and considered by federal and state agency water manager, irrigation district managers and private agricultural enterprises.
Analysis by N. Brozovic (Illinois) and C. Speir (NMFS) of instream flow damages from groundwater pumping show that, to achieve ecological flow requirements, pumping restrictions may need to vary across space and time in complex ways.
Kansas researchers (J. Peterson and N. Hendricks) found that groundwater irrigation demand was highly price inelastic (Ex,p=0.1). Most of the decline in pumping in response to increase costs arises from in-season management adjustments rather than switches in crops or plots irrigated. Irrigation cessation programs were estimated to be 7 times more costly than a water pricing program to conserve water.
Other results from Kansas (J. Peterson and A. Saak) show that with limited speed of lateral return flows, large farms manage aquifers more like a private resource and reduce current pumping rates to save water for future periods. Small farms experience the common pool externalities more strongly and do not reduce current pumping rates. Common property externalities transfer current irrigation rents from large to small farms.
In Michigan, the recharge calculator was used by TNC technicians, supported by Coca-Cola, to aid them in achieving a Water Neutral Footprint for their bottling plant. Further funding from TNC and The Mott Foundation are supporting expansion over the entire Saginaw River Basin.
The Michigan team developed a module to provide stakeholders with a broader understanding of what sustainable water infrastructure means for their community and region, including preparatory actions to be taken. Development of a well database system in Michigan, which collects location and capacity of all new wells, allows better measurements of drought impacts. The location, potential drawdown, and resulting hot spots for anticipated ecological risk to nearby streams is being mapped for real-time management decisions.
A USDA-NIFA grant (L. McCann, Missouri; $414,000; 2012-2015) will examine adoption among homeowners of water management practices to reduce water runoff impacts and irrigation needs.
Funded grant: K. Schoengold (co-PI with K. Giannakas (PI)), USDA-NIFA Policy Research Grant ($144,190; 2012-2014): CAFIO-PRG, Project title: Reducing Impediments to Managing Climate Risk for Heterogeneous Farms
Funded grant: Lilyan Fulginiti (PI), K. Schoengold , Richard Perrin, John Gates, Bridget Scanlon, University of Nebraska Water for Food Institute ($100,000; 2011-2013), Project title: Option Values and the Sustainable Management of the High Plains Aquifer for Food Production and Ecosystem Services.
A minimum cost model developed by R. Hearne (N. Dakota) for water recycling and transportation of oil well drilling wastewater is intended to help the energy industry assess the financial and economic feasibility of recycling drilling flowback water.
From an economic study of Rio Grande water resources, Hurds findings indicate that agricultural water users could be most affected by curtailed deliveries and higher water scarcity. Municipal water users are likely to face higher delivery costs as competition heightens for scarce surface supplies.
Texas biofuel research focuses on growing biofuel crops in regions and areas with limited water supplies and/or elevated salinity water to reduce competitive impacts with food crop production. Their findings are revealing which crops are most suitable for producers to grow.
Research results from USDA-ERS (G. Schaible) demonstrate that there exists significant room for improvement. Conservation policy needs to place greater emphasis on producer adoption of more efficient "irrigation production systems" that integrate improved on-farm water-management measures (use of soil- and plant-moisture sensing devices, commercial irrigation scheduling, and crop-growth simulation models) with efficient irrigation application systems.
In Washington the Columbia River Basin Long-Term Water Supply and Demand Forecast Report provides forecasts of future water availability and use. The WISDM project will improve understanding of interactions between water quantity and quality, climate change, and human behavior, including how water users can be involved in the research process to develop feasible public policy. The BioEarth project will improve understanding of carbon, nitrogen, and water at the regional scale to inform decision makers strategies regarding natural and agricultural resource management.
Peck and Hansen (with other WY and AK authors) published a paper in Western Economics Forum to raise policymakers awareness of large uncertainty underlying climate-change predictions for the Rocky Mountain West, and the need for improved models so economists can explore optimal adaptation.
Hansen and a University of Wyoming hydrologist obtained a grant from Western Water Assessment (NOAA) to examine vulnerability of Wyoming communities to climate change and variability. The project will fund a graduate student. The report will be of interest to state and local planning officials. NOAA/University of Colorado-Boulder, PIs: Miller, Hansen, $49,887, 2011-2012.
Outreach and publications completed by Arizona researchers are being used in public agencies and by irrigation district managers to inform decisions about temporary water transactions. Supply reliability arrangements that use temporary and contingent water transfer agreements are likely to be more cost effective and stable across varying climate and economic conditions.
In California, A. Dinar obtained a Giannini Foundation grant for $25K to study farmers decisions and response to policy instruments under water scarcity and deteriorated quality in avocado production. Insights will benefit the avocado industry.
A survey of Colorado producers, which highlighted sectors of the agricultural community hardest hit by drought in 2011, will allow state regulators to design better drought management programs. The combined effect of the survey and modeling efforts led to two follow up grants from the CWCB and CDA to extend the drought impact study into 2012 and expand the geographic scope to all of Colorado.
Results from experiments on water pricing, consumption, and trade (C. Goemans and S. Krall, Colorado) will help water utilities better understand household responsiveness to rate structure changes, both type and levels.
New Principles and Guidelines are requiring federal agencies to conduct Cost Benefit Analysis on a watershed scope and account for ecosystem services. A spatial partial equilibrium model from Idaho (G. Taylor) provides Bureau of Reclamation project managers with an integrated hydrologic economic planning tool for watersheds that incorporates hydrologic externalities. Idaho rule curve research will assist the Corp and BOR in updating old rule curves.
An intended outcome of Brozovics (Illinois) research is to develop and implement market mechanisms to reallocate groundwater pumping across space to improve agricultural profits and environmental conditions. A new grant-funded pilot study (including K. Schoengold and C. Speir) will set up an online groundwater market in Nebraska for the 2013 irrigation season.
Funded grant: N. Brozovic (PI), K. Schoengold, C. Speir, X. Cai, R. Carroll, WSC-CATEGORY 1: Development of an integrated economic-hydrologic-ecologic framework for resilient groundwater governance systems, USDA-NIFA, 2012-2014, $147,260.
Kansas farmers were found to be averse to non-price features of payments for environmental service (PES) contracts, such as a lengthy signup process and penalties assessed for contractual violations. Aversion to these features leads to large transaction costs in PES contract markets, which significantly reduces the cost effectiveness of PES schemes.
Michigans work on water quality will provide better knowledge of the structural and social factors that influence water quality behaviors, and through that, improve strategies for reaching 10% of the most problematic areas.
Recently completed research at Missouri shows that design of dual flush toilets affects how they are used, and thus the amount of water conserved. This research will be published in an interdisciplinary journal and thus be read by scientists and engineers who design water-conserving toilets. Behavioral economics has implications for design of all types of water-using appliances and fixtures.
In many arid countries, rules for allocation of irrigation water when shortages occur are poorly defined. F. Ward (New Mexico) has analyzed water shortage sharing rules that reduce losses in economic benefits and food security. Findings show that a proportional sharing of water shortages is the most flexible rule among those analyzed.
Analysis of alternative water policies in Texas is helping the region and state in selecting economically efficient water supply and demand strategies.
The EIB #99 (Schaible, USDA-ERS) demonstrates that a broader water conservation policy perspective is needed to better integrate on-farm water conservation with watershed-scale/institutional water-management goals and measures, including the use of water banks, conserved water rights, water-option markets, reservoir management, water pumping restrictions, and irrigated acreage retirement. Better integration of on-farm water conservation programs with watershed and institutional water-management mechanisms can improve the potential for agricultural water conservation, while enhancing farm economic returns and helping ensure a more sustainable future for irrigated agriculture.
In Wyoming D. Peck, K. Hansen and a graduate student are developing a model of a tradable permits system to explore its potential to alleviate disputes between agriculture and energy companies about by-product water from coalbed methane extraction. The intended long-term impact is to enhance WY-SEO and DEQs understanding of the pros and cons of market-based versus regulatory approaches.
Funded grant: Hansen, Paige, Duke, and Willson. Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station Competitive Grants Program. Landowner Survey for a Payments for Ecosystem Services Program in the Upper Green River Basin. $51,392, 2012-2013. Participants include energy companies, landowners, state and federal land management agencies, a conservation district, and Environmental Defense Fund.
The University of Wyoming received an EPSCoR grant for a research program linking surface/subsurface watershed hydrology, geophysics, remote sensing, and computational modeling. This will facilitate policy analysis on Wyoming water issues. US National Science Foundation. PI: Sylvester; co-PIs: Holbrook, Miller; Hansen collaborator, $20,000,000, 2012-17.
Funded grant: K. Schoengold (PI) and N. Brozovic, Analysis of Potential Groundwater Trading Programs for Nebraska, USGS, 2012-2013, $29,671.

Date of Annual Report: 01/07/2014

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 10/23/2013 - 10/25/2013
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2012 - 09/01/2013

Participants

Benson, Aaron (aaron.benson@ttu.edu) - Texas Tech University
Brozovic, Nick (nbroz@illinois.edu) - University of Illinois
Cardon, Grant (grant.cardon@usu.edu) - Utah State University
Eiswerth, Mark (mark.eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of Northern Colorado
Goemans, Chris (cgoemans@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University
Hansen, Kristi (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming
Harrington, Mike (wdal@lamar.colostate.edu) ¬- WAAESD
Huffaker, Ray (rhuffaker@ufl.edu) - University of Florida
Hurd, Brian (bhurd@nmsu.edu) - New Mexico State University
McCann, Laura (mccannl@missouri.edu) - University of Missouri
Peck, Dannele (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming
Peterson, Jeff (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University
Schoengold, Karina (kschoengold2@unl.edu) - University of Nebraska
Suter, Jordan (jordan.suter@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University
Taylor, Garth (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho
Yoder, Jonathan (yoder@wsu.edu) - Washington State University

Brief Summary of Minutes

W-2190 Meeting
October 24, 2013

Minutes of W2190 Meeting Submitted by Aaron Benson October 24-25, 2013 Salt Lake City, Utah

This is the fifth annual meeting of W2190, held on October 24-25, 2013

Officers for the past year: Chair Kristi Hansen, Wyoming; Vice-Chair Karina Schoengold, Nebraska; Secretary Aaron Benson, Texas

October 24, 2013, Morning session

8:10 AM Grant Cardon welcomed attendees and opened the meeting.

8:15 AM Karina Schoengold reviewed minutes from 2012 meeting. Brian Hurd made a motion to accept minutes from 2012. Aaron Benson seconded. The vote was unanimous.

8:16 AM Grant Cardon mentioned the ability of this group to produce research, citing the recent special issue of JNRPR published almost entirely by W-2190 members.

8:20 AM Attendee introductions.

8:30 AM Grant Cardon introduced the Salt Lake region and discussed the water issues facing it. Utahs water transfers are often trans-basin in nature pulling water from the Uintah Basin into the Great Basin

9:15 AM Kristi Hansen suggested that we add an opportunity to make announcements at 1:00 PM

9:15 AM Mike Harrington gave an update on Multistate Committees. NIFA priority areas havent changed. ESCOP has completed a science roadmap for food and agriculture. There will be changes in AFRI Programs: previously, there was a focus on big science. There will not be a climate change area in the 2014 RFP. There will be a water initiative. There will be a pest management program in the 2014 budget.

Brian Hurd asks about a research production function, wanting to know what the most productive coordination of assets is can things get too big or too small? Mike Harrington discusses the importance of emotional intelligence in coordinating research among well-trained, well-respected researchers across disciplines and institutions.

Jon Yoder asks if the water initiative working group has any economists on it.

In 2010, AFRI received 1500 requests for $3.9 billion, and funded 403 projects at $232 million.

Budget outlook: all fed programs lost 7.62%, distributed across all lines, except AFRI, which increased. The 2014 budget has proposed funding be restored to 2012 levels. Questions about the budget beyond 2014.

Multistate research update: 365 active multistate research projects. MR excellence award any current multistate project is eligible. Evaluated on accomplishments (outputs, outcomes and impacts).

Multistate project reports (SAES-422 ) are collated when projects close out, and impacts are used to create impact statement used to inform decision makers. Impact is the quantifiable difference a program makes in the quality of life for its users. Reports, publications, patents, data workshops or information, description of program/process, number of persons at a meeting or enrolled in a program are NOT impacts. Impact statements address who cares? so what? questions. An impact statement is a brief summary in laymen terms short sentences, clearly states payoffs to society. Stuff like adoption of technology, creation of jobs, reduced cost of production, reduced cost to consumers, less pesticide exposure, access to more nutritious food, cleaner environment and healthier communities. Potential impact should be considered.

If there are goals/objectives not yet met in W-2190, they can be included in the renewal, but typically, the coordinators look for new objectives in multistate project renewals. Mike needs a list of potential reviewers for the renewal.

Nick Brozovic asked what things we should be doing to increase our effectiveness. Mike answered that we should show inter-relatedness things we are working on together. This committee should be prepared to jointly submit a proposal to the new water initiative.

This committee should have some connection with the Western States Water Council. Maybe the issue of water policy and food production would be a good target for an AFRI proposal or objective for the renewal.

10:25 The committee addressed proposal development for the next 190 project. The committee recognized the need for a justification statement, current/past work, and objectives (with methods, tasks to meet methods, outcomes). In the past, the objectives were addressed at the field level, modeling/theoretical level and institutional level. Garth Taylor suggested that the original division among objectives is still appropriate. Grant suggested that we need, as a minimum, the three objectives specified at the end of this meeting, in order to invite as much as participation as possible.

Mike Harrington pointed out that objectives need to be measureable. The committee should be able to state objectives that can be achievable, measurable, reasonable and time-bound. WERA1020 is the multistate coordinating committee that coordinates research between our research committee and others. WERA1020 grew out of issues with the water quality program.

11:00 Gene Shawcroft from Central Utah Water Conservation District. The CUWCD covers roughly 60% of the states population. Have no retail customers, only wholesale. Most of their water comes into Salt Lake County. Utah is allocated 1.4 million acre-ft per year of Colorado River water. CUP (Central Utah Project) develops Utahs allocation of the Co River water. CUP is a series of exchanges, because CUPs water right is junior to some irrigation rights downstream. CUP develops winter flow and high flow. 35% return flow on M&I water.

October 24, 2013, Afternoon session

1:20 Grant presented a project in which a corn/wheat rotation was used in conjunction with duck hunting. A strip of unharvested corn down the middle of the field is used as a blind.

1:30 Gopalakrishnan requested a collaboration for another special issue of JNRPR, topic is open. U of Wyoming recently had a symposium on water issues and agricultural issues in the energy industry.

1:40 Kansas state report: Jeff is working on groundwater depletion issues and policy regarding that. Looks at ways to design policies that are key to hydrologic conditions. Different policy instruments are better for different aquifer conditions, or as the aquifer is depleted. Its a combination of theoretical and computational models, and is coupled with hydrological modeling.

1:40 Breakout session to discuss the writing of the objectives for the project renewal. The first objective will be called Foundations. Need an objective statement and come up with a list of some methods and tasks.

2:35 Norm Jones (Brigham Young University) addressed the committee and discussed a NSF project: modeling for water resource management. The grant enhanced cyberinfrastructure facilities, enhanced access to data- and computationally-intensive modeling, advanced high-resolution multi-physics watershed modeling, and promote STEM learning and water science management. #2 goals: 1) provide hydrologic researchers, modelers, water managers and users access to HPC resources without requiring them to become HPC and CI experts, and 2) Reduce the amount of time and effort spent in finding and organizing the data&.

3:30 - Field tour to Park City, Jordanelle Reservoir, down the Provo River to Deer Creek Reservoir, Utah Lake, and some of the canal/pipeline works in the Wasatch Front.

October 25, 2013 Morning session

8:00 AM Business meeting. Jordan Suter elected as new secretary. Decision made to hold the meeting in Las Vegas next year. Oct 22-24. Kristi Hansen mentioned the possibility of hosting a conference. Laura McCann mentioned that AAEA has money available to coordinate a 1-2 day symposium. Karina Schoengold explained that WAEA is hoping to have some organized symposia at their annual meeting in Colorado Springs. We agree to keep in touch about these topics via email. Ariel Dinar is hosting a World Bank conference. The WCERE conference will be in Istanbul in June/July 2014. Nick Brozovic announced that University of Illinois is hiring for two agricultural economics positions.

8:30 Discussion regarding committee objectives for the renewal. Committee members should email Grant evidence of impacts from committee work over the last five years. 2 week deadline to return narratives of objectives/methods to Grant (Nov 15th). A discussion of potential reviewers: George Frisvold, Richard Howitt, Nathan Hendricks, Joshua Duke.

9:30 State reports

Garth Taylor (Idaho): working with externalities and conjunctive use externalities in surface water use. Also working with rule curves in reservoir management to address emerging issues.

Chris Goemens (Colorado): did a variety of work on a recent drought in Colorado. Investigating impacts across the state. Investigating interactions between farmers who are opposed to water transfers and farmers who want to be able to transfer their water rights. CSU organized a workshop addressing water valuation for stakeholders. Recently completed a survey on consumer willingness to support agriculture, comparing policies and potential impacts. Found support for agriculture even in face of price increases. They have been doing some lab experiments in urban water demand.

Jordan Suter (Colorado): Three laboratory experiments: 1) dairy farmers in NY evaluating impact on nonpoint source pollution of a production tax, 2) water quality in water quality trading: explaining why water quality trading doesnt occur because of thin markets in presence of large capital expenditure requirements 3) groundwater use experiments determining how people make decisions in presence of spatially explicit groundwater dynamics.

Mark Eiswerth (Colorado): Can. J. Agri. Econ. had an issue that featured articles by a few members of W2190. Mark discussed a proposal looking at payment for ecosystem services in a watershed. Also has proposed a project to analyze the Poudre watershed determining different metrics to measure watershed health, condition. Determine how user groups think about these topics.

Brian Hurd (New Mexico): has 3 main areas. 1.) analyzing system dynamics of the acequia irrigation systems in Northern New Mexico. 2.) looking at municipal water use in El Paso and Ciudad Jaurez, and the urban system of water use, with groundwater as the main backstop resource and notions of sustainability. 3.) looking at climate change adaptation, impact assessments, in developing countries. Dealing with sparse data while trying to build a hydroeconomic model.

Grant Cardon (Utah): salinity inventory assessment projects. Developing a baseline of water quality in Grand Valley in Colorado. Had a large USGS database with several decades of data and a large spatial region. He found long-term periodic oscillations in certain salinity data (specific conductance), with a period of 12 years possibly caused by decadal Nino/Nina oscillations.

Jon Yoder (Washington): transdisciplinary modeling effort to put together a suite of modeling types the primary economic component of which is an agent-based implementation. Watershed simulation model designed to be used as an experimental tool to understand stakeholder perspectives on water policy questions provides water outcomes from specific policies; Jon wishes to apply this model to the Spokane and Yakima watersheds to provide stakeholders with a holistic perspective on policy alternatives. Jon is working on two other projects 1.) Columbia river treaty is up for renegotiation in 2014, and Jons group is looking at negotiation positions of the US and Canada wrt to this treaty, and how those positions have changed since 1964, when the treaty was initiated. The primary benefits of the treaty are flood control (for Portland) and energy production. There were 4 dams built to effect this. Half of the electricity produced is sent to Canada. 2.) Jon is working to disaggregate benefit and cost estimates that have been done on projects to promote salmon habitat and other objectives in the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan.

Laura McCann (Missouri): Missouri has a new water center with focus on water quality issues in Gulf of Mexico. Laura completed a project on the effect of information about uses of dual flush toilets. Laura also completed a paper on transaction costs and design.

Kristi Hansen (Wyoming): 3 projects. 1) projects on the North Platte river to store water inter-annually. 2) payment for ecosystem services project on greater sage grouse habitat. The state of Wyoming would like to improve habitat to the point that the bird is not listed as endangered. They are planning on using the ecosystem services trading market in a water quantity/quality training market. 3) large-scale water project of the Colorado River basin. Kristi needs to find someone to help work on identifying salinity damages in lower Colorado basin.

Dannele Peck (Wyoming): had a student finish a project on the conflicts between water users in context of coalbed methane extraction, comparing social impact of regulatory approach to a more market-based policy approach. Dannele mentioned another project studying farm-level adaptation to climate change, and bringing the conversation out to farmers, and learning from farmer what they see as challenges that they face, and why they might resist any changes.

Karina Schoengold (Nebraska): has been working on drought management and climate risk at the producer level. She has looked at use of various farm-level conservation practices and govt. programs, determining whether they are substitutes or complements. She will be conducting a producer survey to see how they manage climate risk and drought issues, including risk attitudes and risk perception. She has also looked at demand for groundwater and groundwater trading, analyzing water use who was trading and whether economic criteria is useful in prediction direction of trades. She has also studied role of climate variability in crop choice to determine use of water at field level. Nebraska: the state is looking into water buyouts in the Platte river basin.

Nick Brozovic (Illinois): has a couple of things to discuss. In 2012, Illinois double its irrigated acreage, and a number of seed companies demanded that farms install irrigation systems to mitigate drought risk, even though it would only be needed every 6 or 7 years. Nick has been working on intraseasonal stochastic crop production functions and its effect on aquifer dynamics. Nick has been working on energy use and water use farmers make decisions based on energy prices and electricity contracts available to farmers. Nick organized a conference in China on surface/ground water interactions. Nick has an NSF proposal (with Karina S. and Cameron Speir) to use real-time data of water use in developing a water trading system. Nick has a grant proposal around groundwater marketing with a graduate student. Nick (as a part of a group) put in a WSC proposal to look at the Ogallala to build up a behavioral basis to management. The proposal has several W2190 members as co-PIs and collaborators (Peterson, Speir, Schoengold) and another member on the advisory council (Golden).

Aaron Benson (Texas): projects on determination of non-use values of Ogallala water, cost savings of a groundwater trading model to affect groundwater conservation, and spatial aspects of ecosystem services of wetlands on the Texas Southern High Plains.

Ray Huffaker (Florida): Florida has large fresh and saltwater resources. UF has an active water research center that promotes interdisciplinary water research. Springs generate a lot of the surface flow, provide habitat for manatees, recreation for spring diving. Springs are being polluted, but the source isnt known. Currently, monitoring techniques and equipment are being developed to fingerprint spring pollution. Ray is working on using complicated datasets to reconstruct dynamics of the real-world system that generated the data. Ray would like to start building models that generate dynamics that match the complexity of real-world data.

11:45 Discussion about how the state reports affect the proposal development. Discussion about potentially moving next years meeting to Florida with Ray Huffaker as host. Decision made to move the meeting to Florida instead of Las Vegas as discussed. Dates are tentatively set for October 22 24th.

Accomplishments

W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. In Illinois, N. Brozovic and collaborators used intraseasonal stochastic crop-water production functions to analyze optimal irrigation strategies under conditions of limited water availability. In Texas, research continued on determining the spatial distribution of salinity in the affected fields using Electromagnetic Induction (EMI) technique. This research is being carried out in collaboration with B. Leinauer at NMSU, G. Cardon (W-2190) at Utah State University, and local growers. The Texas research team also developed of a simplified profitability irrigation analyzer calculator spreadsheet for producers based on acreage derived water capacity (gpm/ac). The tool is currently in beta testing. Finally, changing conditions in the Texas Panhandles agriculture were reexamined for both the water demands and associated management strategies for the states water plan. In Wyoming, D. Peck is seeking funds to organize a research workshop and outreach sessions about farm-level adaptation to climate-change. If funded, stakeholders and W2190 members will participate. J. Bartholic, in Michigan, is developing an Integrative Decision Support System (IDSS) that incorporates climate variability of water resources throughout the state for planning and management strategy development. Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. N. Brozovic and a student used theoretical analysis and econometrics to analyze the interactions between water use and energy policy in groundwater-fed agriculture. K. Kovacs developed a working paper to evaluate how to use on-farm reservoirs to conserve water and maintain farm profit in the rice-soybean production region of the Arkansas Delta, and twice presented posters at regional meetings (57th Annual Rural Life Conference and the Arkansas Water Resources Center Annual Watershed and Resources Conference). Dr. Kovacs also received grant for the research of on-farm reservoirs from the Arkansas Water Resources Center. G. Schaible, at USDA-ERS examined farm structural characteristics of western irrigated agriculture and their implications for improving on-farm irrigation efficiency that enhances USDA conservation goals, worked with the NASS Interagency Task Group to revise and enhance the 2013 FRIS, providing information allowing USDA to address growing water-policy issues in the future, and communicated irrigation/water-management research results to western academic, State agency, and federal water-policy stakeholders through Invited Presentations. J. Jones analyzed a 37 year dataset from Lake of the Ozarks to show that phosphorus levels near the dam vary by 5-fold and that hydrology (inflow) accounts for over 80% of the measured temporal variation. Dr. Jones identified Missouri reservoirs as potential carbon sinks (flux of carbon dioxide across the water surface) during summer; flux is large in eutrophic reservoirs. This finding influences global carbon balance. B. Hurd continued research in support of the NSF-support study of acequia systems (small-system community irrigation) including community meetings, development of collaborative proposals. Also, the New Mexico team developed a model of climate change impacts on water and agricultural resources which extended to the development of system dynamics modeling of climate-human-land use systems. M. Eiswerth forged external, intrastate linkages among water resources faculty at multiple universities in Colorado by serving on the Advisory Board of the One World One Water Center of MSU Denver, and participated in a research project regarding linkages between climate change, drought and water-based recreation that was made possible due to linkages internal to W2190 project. J. Yoder received a grant to study biogeochemical cycling in the context of climate variability using a regional earth system modeling framework. Additionally, members from Washington State have two papers under review with implications to water use and impacts. J. Peterson guest edited a special issue of the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research that was published in 2013, including several contributions from W2190 members on their project-related research. Also, members from Kansas developed a theoretical model of a multicell aquifer to characterize common pool externalities when cell depth varies. Preliminary results were presented at the 2013 AAEA conference. A. Dinar participated in a research project to study the adaptation of Western US agriculture to climate change-induced water scarcity. In Texas, research was conducted on the water and economic implications related to hydraulic fracturing in the Barnett Shale and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. Also, water use per well and economic returns to water was estimated. The values are sensitive to gas/oil prices as these are compared to irrigated agricultural and municipal and industrial water values. D. Peck co-edited a special issue in the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research titled Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors." W2190 members wrote 7 of 8 articles. Also, D. Peck and a masters student are integrating economics into a quantitative risk analysis of flood damage in Indonesia. Intended long-term impact: improve flood prevention investment efficiency. K. Schoengold estimated the impacts of stochastic versus fixed water prices on the adoption of precision irrigation technology using data from California. D. Megeressa and K. Schoengold estimated the impact of biofuel policy on land and water allocation in Kansas, Nebraska, and S. Dakota. K. Schoengold, M. Eiswerth (W2190), and P. Shrestha published a paper on the effect of drought on the whitewater rafting industry. B. Colby continued to analyze economics of advanced remote sensing techniques to measure and monitor water "savings" in irrigation forbearance agreements, and Continued to analyze economics of innovative, voluntary risk-sharing agreements to enhance supply reliability for urban and habitat water needs in the Lower Colorado River Basin. B. Colby also conduced econometric modeling of farmer adaptation to irrigation water shortfalls, Mexicali Valley. Objective 3: Investigate Alternative Water Policy and Management Institutions. N. Brozovic and collaborators in economics and civil engineering analyzed the economic and environmental consequences of groundwater management policies in NE, KS, and TX. G. Schaible communicated research results in an invited presentation at the 2013 AAEA meetings for a special session on "Will Water Become a More Limiting Resource for Food Production." In Idaho, G. Taylor, R.D. Schmidt, and B. Contor conducted cost-benefit analysis of alternative management responses to climate change. D. Schmidt, B. Contor, and G. Taylor studied hydrologic externalities and western water management. And researchers developed basin-wide integrated hydro-economic cost-benefit analysis using partial equilibrium models. B. Hurd participated in collaborative efforts to examine interstate water policy and issues between Texas and New Mexico along the Rio Grande watershed, and participated in the development of a joint interstate research plan and proposal. L. McCann studied transaction costs and policy design for water markets, with D. Garrick, and studied behavioral economics and design of a dual flush toilet, with J. Arocha. Articles were published for both studies. J. Yoder, A. Ohler, and H. Chouinard (W-2190) presented an invited seminar on preference revelation from lotteries over complex goods. M. Brady and J. Yoder received a grant to study integrated engineering and economic analysis of the Columbia River Treaty renegotiation using game theory. Washington researchers also participated in a grant-supported project to study feedbacks among biogeochemical simulations, stakeholder perceptions, and behavior. Researchers in Texas studied the advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods of river basin water allocation and findings were discussed with U.S. and Yangtze River scientists and water managers. Texas researchers also addressed challenges and solutions to Megacity water issues at the first joint U.S.-China International conference on Water for Megacities. K. Hansen is leading a project to establish a conservation exchange for the provision of ecosystem services (water resources and wildlife habitat) in southwestern Wyoming. With colleagues in Utah and Wyoming, K. Hansen is incorporating water management data and economic information into a hydro-economic model of the Upper CO River Basin States. K. Hansen and a graduate student are examining alternative policies to help irrigation districts manage inter-annual water supply variability on the North Platte River in Southeast Wyoming and Western Nebraska. D. Peck served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, which reaches water-related external peer groups, clientele, and stakeholders. Michigan researchers aided in the development of the Water Withdrawal Assessment Tool (WWAT) for assuring that new water withdrawals do not have an Adverse Resource Impact. Also, with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Water Use Council and white paper for the Governor (a forum for discussion/developing policies), Michigan researchers provided guidance with important inputs from W2190. Several Michigan researchers have been invited to support and be a resource for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Water Use Council with resource summaries and facilitation. Michigan researchers, with the Institute of Water Research has developed a 'White Paper on Water Strategy for Michigan: Agricultural Expansion and Water Resource Protection' for the Governor's Water Task Force B. Colby generated reports on improved use of remote sensing and other measurement and monitoring practices and more cost effective prioritization of water acquisitions, made policy recommendation to assist low income farmers in adapting to irrigation water shortfalls in the Mexicali Valley, assisted Bureau of Reclamation staff in developing methods to better understand irrigation district and grower choices and preferences related to on-farm conservation and irrigation forbearance programs, and collaborated with Bureau of Reclamation staff on improving cost effectiveness in monitoring reduced consumptive use irrigation forbearance agreements.

Publications

2011 Columbia River Basin Long-Term Water Supply and Demand Forecast. Submitted to the State of Washington Department of Ecology and Washington. June 2012. Abell, J. M., D. Özkundakci, D. P. Hamilton, and J. R. Jones. 2012. Latitudinal variation in nutrient stoichiometry and chlorophyll-nutrient relationships in lakes: A global study. Fundamental and Applied Limnology 181:1-14. Ambec, S., A. Dinar and D. McKinney, Water Sharing Agreements Sustainable to Reduced Flows, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, (Accepted June 4, 2013). Archuleta, E., Raucher, B., J. Clements, A.M. Michelsen, H. Gonzalez and M.P. Fahy. 2013. Barriers and Solutions to Concentrate Management for Inland Municipal Desalination. Multi-state Salinity Coalition Annual Summit. Las Vegas, NV. Feb. 14-15. Bartholic, J. 2012. Water Resource Study Kick-Off Meeting, Ottawa County Water Study Project West Olive, MI, Jan. 11. Bartholic, J. 2012. Invited speaker at Great Lakes Decision Support Systems on Steroids, the Minnesota River Integrated Watershed Study Workshop, University of Minnesota-St. Paul Campus, MN, Jan. 16-17. Bartholic, J. 2012. Environmental Decision Support Systems on Steroids: An Overview of Several Systems Being Developed by Groups on Campus, IWR and Center for Water Sciences, MSU, Jan. 25. Bartholic, J. 2012. Farm Conservation/Environmental Credit Calculator (CCC), Webinar Presentation, March 22. Bartholic, J. 2012. MSU's Virtual Watershed Program-An Internet-based Academic Credit or Professional Certificate Program in Watershed Management Online, East Lansing, MI, March 30. Bartholic, J. 2012. Productivity and Conservation Enhancement: Mapping, Assessing and Tracking, Natural Resource Working Group, East Lansing, MI, May 10. Bartholic, J. 2012. Web-based Model Development-Agricultural Land Uses, presented at the Great Lakes Sedimentation Workshop in Ann Arbor, MI, May 31. Bartholic, J. 2012. Watershed Targeting Program, USDA Technology Workshop, East Lansing, MI, June 25. Bartholic, J., 2012. Navigating a new course for water resource policy and management, Michigan State University Futures Magazine, MSU Global Water Initiative, volume 30 Nos 1 & 2. pg 21-26 Bartholic, J. 2012. On-air conversation/interview with Kirk Heinze on Greening of the Great Lakes conversation with Kirk Heinze aired on WDBM The Impact 88.9 FM student radio; 1240 AM WJIM; and 760 AM WJR. Topic: MSU Institute of Water Research: Finding Global Water Management Solutions Locally. Transcript available at http://goo.gl/B8jWK or www.facebook.com/GOTGL. February 18. Bartholic, J., Y. Shi., J. Asher. 2012. Co-Creation and Adaptation of Tools for New Purposes and Audiences Great Lakes/Gulf/Upper Mississippi, presented at the Midwest Spatial Decision Support System Partnership Conference in Chicago, IL, July 9-10. Bartholic, J. (presenter), Y. Shi, J. Asher. 2012. Tools and Techniques for Watershed Management and Decision Support-Decision Support Systems for Water, Energy, and Food in an Uncertain World, presented at the UCOWR/NIWR Annual Conference: Managing Water, Energy & Food in an Uncertain World, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 17-19. Bartholic, J., Y.Shi, K.Maredia, S.Seedang, J.MacDonagh-Dumler. 2012. Inst of Water Research and Inst of Int'l Agriculture, Michigan State University, Characteristics of an Action Plan for Addressing Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Ag in South Asia Region. Submitted to the Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute Research Centre, India for inclusion in Proceedings from the Indo-US Workshop on Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia Region, Dec. 10-12, 2009, in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India. Ch. 3, pp. 21-35. Bauman, A., C. Goemans, J. Pritchett, and D. Thilmany. 2013. "Estimating the Economic and Social Impacts from the Drought in Southern Colorado." Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education, Issue 151, August 2013. Benson, C.P., R. Watson, G. Taylor, P. Cook, S. Hollenhorst. Who Visits a National Park and What do They Get Out of It?: A Joint Visitor Cluster Analysis and Travel Cost Model for Yellowstone National Park. J. Environmental Management. 52(2) 2013. Botelho, A., A. Dinar, L. Costa-Pinto, and A. Rapoport, Time and Uncertainty in Resource Di-lemmas: Equilibrium Solutions and Experimental Results. Paper presented at the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE) section of the Allied Social Science As-sociation Winter Meeting, San Diego, CA, January 5-8, 2013. Brady, M. and U. Bastola. Is Irrigation Inefficiency a Result of Incentives or Complexity? Select presentation at the Western Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meetings, Monterey, CA, June 24, 2013. Brady, M. and J. Yoder. (2013) Understanding the Relationship Between Water Price, Value, and Cost. Washington State University Extension Fact Sheet FS110E. Brozovic, N. Groundwater Management and the Protection of Instream Flows, University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2013. Brozovic, N. Groundwater Management and the Protection of Instream Flows, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, 2013. Brozovic, N. Groundwater Management and the Protection of Instream Flows, China Agricultural University, College of Water Resources and Civil Engineering, 2013. Brozovic, N. Groundwater Management and the Protection of Instream Flows, Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College, London, 2013. Brozovic, N. Groundwater Management and the Protection of Instream Flows, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), Institute of Environmental Engineering, 2013. Bulatewicz, T., A. Allen, J.M. Peterson, D.R. Steward, S. Staggenborg, and S.M. Welch. The Simple Script Wrapper for OpenMI: Enabling Interdisciplinary Water Studies. Environmental Modeling and Software. 39(January 2013): 283-294. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10040-012-0854-2 Carter, C., A. Garcia y Garcia, A. Islam, and K. Hansen. 2013. Effect of Deficit Irrigation on Water Use and Water Use Efficiency of Alfalfa. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers Technical Paper Number 1603513. St. Joseph, MI: ASABE Chandrasekharan, B ., and B, Colby, Electricity Load Forecasting Improvements as a Climate Change Adaptation, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, in press 2013. Colby, B. Innovative Water Transactions to Meet Urban and Environmental Demands in the Face of Climate Change Chapter 10 in Innovations in Water Markets, William Easter, editor, Springer book series on Global Issues in Water Policy, in press 2013. Colby, B. Water Banking for Intermittent and Temporary Water Transfers Agricultural Economics Panel Water Bank Work Group, Denver, Colorado, November, 2012 Colby, B. Sharing risk of water shortage across borders, Transboundary Water Resources Governance: Theories, Methods and Applications, Tucson, Arizona, January, 2013 Colby, B. Climate Change Challenges in Energy and Water Sectors, Energy Research Colloquium, Tucson, Arizona, April 2013 Colby, B. Economic Value of Remote Sensing in Water Transfer Agreements Water Management Distinguished Lecture Series, Maricopa, Arizona, April, 2013 Colby, B. Patterns in Colorado Basin Water Transfers, Colorado River Biannual Symposium, Santa Fe, September, 2013 Colby, B., L.L. Hoffman, R. Wiederholdt, R. Klawitter, and C. Presnall. Trans-boundary Spatial Subsidies in Ecosystem Services: Bi-national Incentive Mechanisms. International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics, Lille, France, June 2013 Contor, B. A. and Taylor, R. G. (2013), Why Improving Irrigation Efficiency Increases Total Volume of Consumptive Use. Irrigation and Drainage, 62: 273280. doi: 10.1002/ird.1717 Dinar, A., Economic Incentives and Institutional Arrangements in Addressing Increased Water Scarcity and Quality Problems: Theory and Case Studies. Invited Keynote Paper Presented at the 3rd International Water Association conference on Water Economics, Statistics and Fi-nance, Marbella, Spain, April 24-26, 2013. Dinar, A., The Intersection of Climate Change, Water, and Transboundary Issues. Invited Paper presented at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, April 3-5, 2013. Dinar, A. The Water Situation in California and the Citrus Industry: Do we respond adequately? Presentation at the California Citrus Conference, Porterville, CA, October 11, 2012. Dinar, A., Will Water Become a More Limiting Resource for Food Production?, Discussion pre-sented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, Washington DC, August 4-7, 2013. Dinar, A. and U. Kumar Jammalamadaka, Adaptation of Irrigated Agriculture to Adversity and Variability under Conditions of Drought and likely Climate Change: Interaction between Water Institutions and Social Norms. International Journal of Water Governance. (Accepted, October 4, 2012), 1:4164, 2013. Dinar, A. and G. Nigatu, Distributional Considerations of International Water Resources under Externality: The Case of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on the Blue Nile, Water Resources & Economics, (Accepted July 21, 2013). Dinar, A. and A. Rapoport (Eds.), Analyzing Global Environmental Issues: Theoretical and Experimental Applications and their Policy Implications, Routledge, 2013. Dinar, A. and G. Zaccour (Guest Editors), Special Issue of Game Theory Applications to Environmental and Developmental Issues. Environment and Development Economics 18(1), February 2013. Dinar, A. and G. Zaccour, Strategic Behavior and Environmental Commons. Environment and Development Economics, 18(1):1-5, 2013. Duke, E., K. Hansen, and C. Bond. Market Supply Analysis: Landowner Preferences for Ecosystem Service Provision in Wyoming. Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, Selected Poster Presentation. Washington DC (August 2013). Eiswerth, M. Searching for Colorados Water Future. Presented at the inaugural University of Northern Colorado Community Conversation, Greeley, Colorado. November 14, 2012. Eiswerth, M., W. Breffle, D. Muralidharan, and J. Thornton. Economic Values for Lake Improvement: Using a Method to Better Reflect the Preferences of Less Wealthy Residents. Presented at the North American Lake Management Society 32nd International Symposium (by Eiswerth), Madison, Wisconsin. November 7, 2012. Eiswerth, M., K. Schoengold and P. Shrestha. The Joint Impact of Drought Conditions and Media Coverage on the Colorado Rafting Industry. Presented at the Interdisciplinary Water Resources Seminar (by Eiswerth), Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. April 17, 2013. Elbakidze, L., X Shen, G. Taylor, and S. Mooney, Spatio-temporal Analysis of Prior Appropriations Water Calls. Water Resources Research (2012), VOL. 48, W00L07, 13 PP., doi:10.1029/2011WR010609 Elbakidze, L., X. Shen, G. Taylor, and S. Mooney. Moving forward with Prior Appropriations Doctrine in Coping with Irrigation Water Shortages. Selected Poster 2012 AAEA Annual Meeting Seattle WA. Aug. 2012. Esteban, E. and A. Dinar, Modeling Sustainable Groundwater Management: Packaging and Se-quencing of Policy Interventions. Journal of Environmental Management, (Accepted, December 28, 2012), 119:93-102, 2013 Fernald, A., V. Tidwell, J. Rivera, S. Rodriguez, S. Guldan, B. Hurd, C. Ochoa, C. Steele, M. Ortiz, K. Boykin, A. Cibils (2012), Modeling Water, Environment, Livelihood, and Culture in Traditional Irrigation Communities and Their Linked Watersheds, Journal of Sustainability, ISSN 2071-1050, doi:10.3390/su40x000x. Fernald, A., Tidwell, V. C., Rivera, J., Rodriguez, S., Guldan, S. J., Steele, C. M., Ochoa, C., Hurd, B. H., Ortiz, M., Boykin, K. G., Cibils, A. F. (2012). Modeling Water, Ecosystems, Economics and Culture in Traditional Acequia Irrigation Communities of New Mexico and Their Linked Watersheds. Presented to the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting H14F-03, San Francisco, Dec. 3-7, 2012. Ganjegunte, G.K. 2013. Tactics for salinity remediation: Contributing to pest management and profitability. Invited presentation at the 61st Annual Agricultural Chemicals Conference organized by West Texas Agricultural Chemicals Institute, September 10, 2013, Lubbock, TX. Invited. Ganjegunte, G.K. 2013. Alkaline soils / Alkaline water The Chemical Approach. 2013. Cotton Root Rot and other Updates Meeting. Organized by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, August 8, 2013, Fort Hancock, TX. Invited. Ganjegunte, G.K. 2013. Soil Salinity Management. 2013. Extension Entomology/IPM Professional Improvement Conference organized by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Entomology Department, Texas A&M University, March 19 22, 2013, New Braunfels, TX. Invited. Ganjegunte, G.K. 2013. Soil Salinity: Overview and New Technologies. 2013 Texas/Oklahoma Cotton Physiology Working Group Meeting. Organized by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, January 30- February 1, 2013, Austin, TX. Invited. Ganjegunte, G.K., B. Leinauer, M. Schiavon, and M. Serena. 2013. Using Electro-Magnetic Induction to Determine Soil Salinity and Sodicity in Turf Root Zones. Agronomy Journal. 105:836-844. Ganjegunte, G.K., Z. Sheng, and J.A. Clark. 2013. Soil Salinity and Sodicity Appraisal by Electromagnetic Induction in Irrigated Cotton Soils. Land Degradation & Development. (Accepted, In Press, DOI: 10.1002/ldr.1162). Goemans, C., J.-C. Altamirano-Cabrera, L. Wangler, and H.-P. Weikard. Political Economy of International Environmental Agreements, in Jason F. Shogren (ed. in chief), Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics Vol. 3, London, UK: Elsevier (2013), 300-305. Goemans, C., T. L. Cherry and S. Cotton. Heterogeneity, Coordination and the Provision of Best-Shot Public Goods, forthcoming in Experimental Economics. Goemans, C., T. Cherry, S. Kallbekken, and D. M. McEvoy. Cooperation in and out of Markets: An Experimental Comparison of Public Good Games and Markets with Externalities, Economics Letters 2013, 120/1, 93-96. Goemans, C., M. Costanigro, D. Thilmany and M. Bunning Is it Love for Local/Organic or Hate for Conventional? Asymmetric Effects of Information and Taste on Label Preferences in an Experimental Auction, Food Quality and Preferences 2014, 31/1, 94-105. Goemans, C., J. A. List, and C. F. Mason. The Prisoners Dilemma in a Two-Level Game: An Experimental Investigation, in John List and Michael Price (eds.), Handbook of Experimental Methods in Environmental Economics, Edgar Elgar (2013), 458-481. Goemans, C., J. Pritchett, and R. Nelson. 2013. "2012 Drought in Colorado: Estimtes of Foregone Revenues Indirect and Induced Economic Activity for the Crops Sector" ." Production and Farm Management Report 13-01. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University. Available at http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/DARE/PFMR/PFMR%2013-03.pdf. 5 pp. Griffin, R.C., D.E. Peck and J. Maestu. 2013. Introduction: myths, principles and issues in water trading. In J. Maestu (ed.) Water Trading and Global Water Scarcity: International Experiences. New York, NY: RFF Press. Hans, L., C. Goemans, and S. Kroll. 2013. "Impacts of Information on Household Water Use and Responsiveness to Utility Pricing Policies: An Experimental Analysis." Colorado Water. March/April. Volume 29, Issue 2. pp. 15-17. Hansen, K. 2013. Economic Issues Related to Water Resources and Drought. UW Extension Drought Workshop. Gillette, WY and Upton, WY. (March 21 and 22, 2013). Hansen, K. 2013. Upper Green River Conservation Exchange: Market-Based Conservation Mechanism. Conservation Finance Forum sponsored by UW Ruckelshaus Institute, The Strook Forum on Wyoming Lands and People, and The Nature Conservancy (April 2013). Hansen, K., R. Howitt, and J. Williams. 2013. Water Trades in the Western United States: Risk, Speculation, and Property Rights. In Water Trading and Global Water Scarcity: International Perspectives, ed. J. Maestu. New York: RFF Press Water Policy Series, pp. 55-67. Hansen, K., A. Jakle, and M. Hogarty. 2013. Market-Based Wildlife Mitigation in Wyoming: A Primer. Laramie, Wyoming: University of Wyoming Ruckelshaus Institute. Hansen, K., J. Kaplan, and S. Kroll. 2013. Valuing Options in Water Markets: A Laboratory Investigation. Environmental and Resource Economics, forthcoming. Hansen, K., G. Paige, and R. Coupal. 2013. Payment for Ecosystem Services Market in the Upper Green River Basin. University of Wyoming Field Days Bulletin. Hines, S., P.Joel, and G. Taylor. Snapshot of Agribusiness in the Magic Valley Economy, 2010. University of Idaho. Dec 2012. Hines, St., J. Packham, and G. Taylor. Contribution of Agribusiness to the Magic Valley Economy, 2010. University of Idaho Extension CIS 1193. Jan. 2013. Hines, S. J. Packham, G. Taylor. Contribution of agribusiness to Idahos Magic Valley economy. Western Region NACAA October 15, 2012 Twin Falls, Idaho Honey-Roses, J., Acuna, W., Bardina, M., Brozovic, N, Marce, R., Munne, A., Sabater, S., Termes, M., Valero, F., Vega, A., and Schneider, D., 2013, Examining the demand for ecosystem services: The value of stream restoration for drinking water treatment managers in the Llobregat River, Spain, Ecological Economics, v. 90:196-205, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.03.019. Hurd, B. (2012). Climate Vulnerability and Adaptive Strategies along the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Border of Mexico and the United States, Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education. Dec (149:56-63). Hurd, B. H. (2013). Climate vulnerability and adaptive strategies along the Rio Grande, Presented at the Universities Council on Water Resources Annual Conference, Presented at the Universities Council on Water Resources Annual Conference, Water Systems, Science, and Society Under Global Change, South Lake Tahoe, CA, June 12, 2013. Hurd, B. H. (2013). Lectures on Water Resources and Climate Change. Presented at the Clim-Adapt Workshop. Bangkok, Thailand, Mar 11-15, 2013. Hurd, B. H. (2013). Acequia Perspectives on Climate-Change and Population Growth and the Perspectives of Preparedness and Adaptation, Presented at the Symposium and Workshop: Acequias and the Future of Resilience in Global Perspective, Session 2: Data Integration and Modeling the Interplay of Social, Cultural, Economic, and Environmental Factors in an Acequia Community. Las Cruces, NM, Mar 2, 2013. Hurd, B. and C. Lant (2013). Managing Water, Energy and Food in an Uncertain World. Journal of Contemporary Research and Education. Aug (151:1-2) Hurd, B., and M. Rouhi-Rad (2012). Estimating economic effects of changes in climate and water availability, Climatic Change, DOI:10.1007/s10584-012-0636-9. Iles, J., L. Wolfson and K. Stepenuck. 2012. Challenges and Opportunities with Developing Volunteer Water Monitoring Programs in Underserved Communities-Lessons Learned from a Three State Regional Project. Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference, Portland, OR, May. Johnson, D., J.R. McKean, and G.Taylor. "Testing for Endogeneneity Bias in the Snake River Reservoirs Sportfishing Demand Model". Special Session Non-Market Valuation in Fisheries and Aquatic Ecosystem Research North American Association of Fisheries Economists (NAAFE), St. Petersburg, Florida, May 21-24, 2013 Johnston, C.R., G.F. Vance, and G.K. Ganjegunte. 2013. Soil Property Changes Following Irrigation with CBNG Water: Role of Water Treatments, Soil Amendments, and Land Suitability. Land Degradation and Development. 24:350-362. Jones, JR and DV Obrecht. 2013. Lake of the Ozarks: analysis of a long-term dataset. Presented at the International Society of Limnology meeting. Prague. Jones, JR and DV Obrecht. 2013. Lake of the Ozarks: analysis of a long-term dataset. Presented at the North American Lake Management meeting. San Diego. Juchems, E. M. and K. Schoengold (2013) Predicting Groundwater Trading in the Upper Republican Natural Resource District Cornhusker Economics. Kline-Robach, R., L. Wolfson, and J. Asher. 2012. Development of a Web-based Program to Encourage Adoption of Green Practices. Land Grant and Sea Grant National Water Conference, Portland, OR, May. Kovacs, K. Conserving Groundwater Supply in the Arkansas Delta using On-Farm Reservoirs. Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, 2013 Kovacs, K. Conserving Groundwater Supply in the Arkansas Delta using On-Farm Reservoirs. SERA35: Delta Region Farm Management and Agricultural Policy Working Group, Vicksburg, MS, 2013 Kovacs, K. Preserving the Quantity and Quality of Water in the Arkansas Delta. Poster, 57th Annual Rural Life Conference, Pine Bluff, AR, 2013 Kovacs, K. Preserving the Quantity and Quality of Water in the Arkansas Delta. Poster, Arkansas Water Resources Center Annual Watershed and Research Conference, Fayetteville, AR, 2013. Kovacs, K., M. Popp, K. Brye. "Conserving Groundwater Supply in the Arkansas Delta using On-Farm Reservoirs." Southern Agricultural Economics Association 2013 Annual Meeting, Selected Paper. Kuwayama, Y. and Brozovic, N., 2013, The regulation of a spatially heterogeneous externality: tradable groundwater permits to protect instream flows, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2013.02.004. Lacewell, R. D., M. E. Rister, E. K. Seawright, A. W. Sturdivant, J. A. Goolsby,2013. Arundo donax: Rio Grande Water Hog, presentation at annual meeting of the University Council on Water Resources, June 2013,Lake Tahoe, CA. Proceedings abstract. Lacewell, Ronald D., Robert Taylor, M. Edward Rister and Emily K. Seawright. 2013. Corn for Ethanol: Irrigation Water Per Gallon. presentation at annual meeting of the University Council on Water Resources, June 2013,Lake Tahoe, CA. Proceedings abstract. Legge, J., P.J. Doran, M. Herbert, J. Asher, G. ONeil, S. Mysorekar, S. Sowa and K. Hall. 2013. From model outputs to conservation action: Prioritizing locations for implementing agricultural best management practices in a Midwestern watershed. doi:10.2489/jswc.68.1.22. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. Jan/Feb 2013-Vol. 68. No. 1, pp. 22-33. Lentz, A., Ando, A.W. and Brozovic, N., 2013, Water quality trading with lumpy investments, credit stacking, and ancillary benefits, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 1-18, DOI: 10.1111/jawr.12117. Madani, K. and A. Dinar, Exogenous Regulatory Institutions for Sustainable Common Pool Resource Management: Application to Groundwater, Water Resources & Economics, (Accepted August 13, 2013). Marek, T., S. Amosson, and B. Guerrero. 2013. 2016 Panhandle Regional Water Plan Task 2 Report: Agricultural Water Demand Projections. Revised technical contract report for Freese and Nichols to the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission for the Texas Water Development Board, Austin, TX. 17p. McCann, L and J. Arocha. Behavioral Economics and the Design of a Dual Flush Toilet. Journal of the American Water Works Association. McCann, L. and D. Garrick. Transaction Costs and Policy Design for Water Markets. In Water Markets for the 21st Century: What We Have Learned, K. William Easter, Qiuqiong Huang, eds. McKean, J. R., D. Johnson, R.G. Taylor. Estimating Tournament Effects on Sportfishing Demand. Tourism Economics. Aug 2014. McKean, J. R., D. Johnson, and R.G. Taylor. Three approaches to time valuation in recreation demand: A study of the Snake River recreation area in eastern Washington. J. Environmental Management 112 (2012) 321-329. McKean, J. , D. Johnson, and R. G. Taylor "Location Value in Recreation Demand with Latent Variable. Western Regional Science Association 51st annual meeting Feb 2012. Kauai, Hawaii Michaletz, P. H., D. V. Obrecht, J. R. Jones. 2012. Influence of environmental variables and species interactions on sport fish communities in small Missouri impoundments. North Amer. J. of Fisheries Manage. 32:6, 1146-1159. Michelsen, A.M. 2013. Mega Cities World-wide: Population, Growth, Water Use and Water Resources Challenges. Water for Mega Cities: Challenges and Solutions, International Specialty Conference, American Water Resources Association and Beijing Hydraulic Engineering Society. Beijing, China. September 16-18. Michelsen, A.M. 2013. Allocation of River Basin Water. 2013 Annual Conference of the Yangtze River Watershed Collaboration Network for Water Resources Research. Xining, Qinghai Province, China. Ministry of Water Resources. Invited. Michelsen, A.M. 2013. Water Conservation Collaboration and Accomplishments of the Rio Grande Basin Initiative. Rio Grande Basin Initiative Summary Meeting. San Antonio, TX. April 16, 2013. Invited. Michelsen, A.M. 2013. Integrated Water Resources Management: Evolution and 6th World Water Forum Results. IWRM Webinar, American Water Resources Association. April 9, 2013. Michelsen, A.M., R.J. Johnston, and G. Parsons. 2013. Beach Management Strategies Economic Assessment. American Water Resources Association Annual Conference. Portland, OR, Nov. 4-7, 2013. Abstract. Michelsen, A.M., R.J. Johnston, and G. Parsons. 2013. Economic Assessment of Delaware Bay Beach Management Strategies. Universities Council on Water Resources/National Institutes for Water Resources Annual Conference. Lake Tahoe, NV, June 11-13. Abstract. Michelsen, A.M., R.D. Lacewell, J.P. Nicot and T. Grimshaw. 2013. Environmental and Related Impacts of Shale Gas Development: Case Study of the Barnett Shale Play. American Water Resources Association Annual Conference. Portland, OR, Nov. 4-7, 2013. Abstract. Michelsen, A.M. and R.D. Lacewell. 2013. Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracturing Water Resources Economic Values. Universities Council on Water Resources/National Institutes for Water Resources Annual Conference. Lake Tahoe, NV, June 11-13. Abstract. Michelsen, A. M., R. D. Lacewell, G. Bitner, and T. Allen. 2013. Environmental and Related Impacts of Shale Gas Development: Case Study of the Barnett Shale - Water Economics. Prepared for: The Energy Institute, Flawn Academic Center, FAC 428, 2 West Mall, C2400, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712. Morgan, T. et al. Idaho Forest Products Industry Current Conditions and 2012 Forecast. Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Experiment Station. Bulletin 96 Jan. 2012. Nelson R., C. Goemans and J. Pritchett. 2012. "Farmer Resiliency Under Drought Conditions." Production and Farm Management Report 13-02. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University. Available at http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/DARE/PFMR/PFMR%2013-02.pdf . 4 pp. Nelson, R., C. Goemans and J. Pritchett. 2013. "Farmer Resiliency Under Drought Conditions." Colorado Water. May/June 2013. Volume 30, Issue 3. pp 2-4. Ochoa, C., Tidwell, V., Fernald, A., Guldan, S. J., Hurd, B. H., Rivera, J., Rodriguez, S., Steele, C., Wilson, J. (2012). "A System Dynamics Approach for Looking at the Human and Environmental Interactions of Community-based Irrigation Systems in New Mexico, Presented to the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Francisco, Dec. 3-7, 2012. Ortiz Correa J. S. and A. Dinar, Effects of Civil War on Access to Water and Sanitation Services. Paper presented at the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) section of the Allied Social Science Association Winter Meeting, San Diego, CA, January 5-8, 2013. Paige, G. and K. Hansen. 2013. Upper Green River Conservation Exchange: Policy Issues and Data Needs for Riparian Function Quantification Tool. State Engineers Office State Water Forum. Cheyenne, WY (November 2013). Patrone, F., and A. Dinar (Guest Editors), Special Issue of Game Theory Applications to Global and International Issues. International Game Theory Review 14(4), 2013. Patrone F. and A. Dinar, Strategic Behavior in Global and International Interactions, Interna-tional Game Theory Review, 14(4):1-4, 2013. Peck, D.E. and J.M. Peterson. 2013. Introduction to the special issue on Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research 5(2-3):73-77. Peterson, J.M. and A.E. Saak. "Spatial Externalities in Aquifers with Varying Thickness: Theory and Numerical Results for the Ogallala Aquifer." Selected Paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting, Washington DC, August 4-6, 2013. Pittman, B., J. R. Jones, J. Millspaugh, R. J. Kremer and J. A. Downing. 2013. Sediment organic carbon distribution in 4 small northern Missouri impoundments: implications for sampling and carbon sequestration. Inland Waters 3:39-46. Pritchett, J., Goemans, C. and R. Nelson. 2013. " Adaptations to Drought: Evidence from and Ag producer Survey." Production and Farm Management Report 13-01. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Colorado State University. Available at http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/DARE/PFMR/PFMR%2013-01.pdf. 7 pp. Quall, R. and G. Taylor. Climate Change Impacts on Idahos Irrigation Water Supply and Delivery in the Context of Water Rights. special issue in Journal of Natural Resource Policy Research on Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors July 2013 Quintana A., N.E. and J.M. Peterson. "The Impact of Irrigation Capital Subsidies on Common-pool Groundwater Use and Depletion: Results for Western Kansas." Selected Paper at the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Summer Conference, Banff, Alberta, June 6-8, 2013. Rahman, S. M., D. F. Larson, and A. Dinar, Costs of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Abatement un-der the Clean Development Mechanism, Climate Change Economics, (Accepted July 23, 2013). Rango, A., Fernald, A., Steele, C. M., Hurd, B. H., Ochoa, C. (2013). Acequias and the effects of climate change. Journal of Contemporary Research and Education. Aug (151:84-94). Schaible, G. D. 2012. Water Conservation in Irrigated Agriculture: Trends and Challenges (October 24). An Invited Presentation at the Agricultural Policy Roundtable on Modern Agricultural Policy with Reduced Spending, sponsored by Informa Economics, Arlington, VA. Schaible, G. D. 2012. U.S. Irrigated Agriculture: Trends and Challenges in the Face of Emerging Demands and Climate Change (October 17). An Invited Presentation at the Public Symposium on Water Policy in the West, sponsored by the Water Science and Policy Center, University of California, Riverside and the Regional Research Committee on Western Water, W2190. Schaible, G. D. 2013. Western Irrigated Agriculture (June). An ERS Data Product of 158 Excel tables (with Documentation and Summary reports) evaluating irrigation characteristics by farm-size class for the 17 Western States based on USDAs 2008 and 1998 Farm & Ranch Irrigation Surveys. Schaible, G. D. and M. P. Aillery. 2013. Western Irrigated Agriculture: Production Value, Water Use, Costs, and Technology Vary by Farm Size, Amber Waves Data Feature, (September). Schaible, G. D. and M. P. Aillery. 2013. U.S. Irrigated Agriculture and Water-Scarcity: Implications for a Sustainable Future. An Invited Presentation at the 2013 AAEA meetings for the Special Session entitled Will Water Become a More Limiting Resource for Food Production, Washington, DC, August 4-6, 2013. [Session Organizer: Glenn D. Schaible; Presentors: Lester Brown, Glenn Schaible, and Mark Rosegrant; Discussant: Arial Dinar; Moderator: Noel Gollehon] Schaible, G. D., M. P. Aillery and S. Wallander. 2013. Served as ERS Representatives on the NASS Interagency Workgroup that developed the 2013 Farm & Ranch Irrigation Survey (FRIS). [Revised FRIS and integrated FRIS and NASSs Horticultural Surveys.] Schmidt, R.D., L. Stodick, G. Taylor and B. Contor. Hydro-Economic Modeling of Boise Basin Water Management Responses to Climate Change. Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, Research Schmidt, R.D., L. Stodick, G. Taylor and B. Contor. Hydro-Economic Modeling of Management Responses to Climate Change in the Boise River Basin. American Water Research Association Annual Meeting Portland OR Nov. 2013 Schoengold, K. "The Impact of Ad-hoc Disaster Programs on the Use of Risk-Reducing Conservation Practices" Kansas State University (April 2013). Schoengold, K. "Water Resource Economics", Nebraska Water Leaders Academy (May 2013). Schoengold, K. "Predicting Groundwater Trading Participation in the Upper Republican Natural Resource District", Nebraska Water Center annual conference (October 2013). Schoengold, K., P. Shrestha, and M.E. Eiswerth. 2013. The Joint Impact of Drought Conditions and Media Coverage on the Colorado Rafting Industry. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research 5:2-3: 183-198. Schuster, E., and B. Colby, Farm And Ecological Resilience To Water Supply Variability, Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education, in press 2013. Serbina, L. and C. Goemans. 2013. "Describing and Quantifying Profit Risk Producers Face When Adopting Water Conserving Cropping Systems." Colorado Water. May/June 2013. Volume 30, Issue 3. pp 5-7. Sheng, Z., A.M. Michelsen, Y. Liu, B. Mohanty and A. Granados-Olivas. 2013. Simulation of Surface Water and Groundwater Interaction in the El Paso-Juarez Valley Using the RiverWare Groundwater Objects. World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, ASCE-EWRI. Cincinnati, OH. May 19- 23. Shi, Y., J. Bartholic. 2012. Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University, Managing Water Resources through Virtual Organizations. The Central Soil & Water Conservation Research & Training Institute Research Centre, India, Indo-US Workshop on Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia Region, Dec. 10-12, 2009, Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India. In Proceedings, Ch. 5, pp. 45-56. Shi, Y. 2012. Mobile Technologies presented at the Midwest Spatial Decision Support System Partnership Conference in Chicago, IL, July 9-10. Shi, Y., J. MacDonald-Dumler, J. Bartholic, G. ONeil, J. Asher. 2012. Institute of Water Research, Michigan State University, Decision Support Tools for Watershed Management A U.S. Experience. Chapter in Proceedings from the Indo-US Workshop on Emerging Issues in Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia Region, Dec. 10-12, 2009, Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India. Ch. 4, pp. 37-44. Singh, D.V., V.N. Sharda, V. Selvi, J. Bartholic, and K. Maredia (eds). 2012. Water Management for Sustainable Agriculture: Indo-US Experiences. Jointly published by CSWCRTI, Research Centre, Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu, India and Michigan State University, East Lansing, U.S.A. 318 p. Smith, C.M., J.C. Leatherman, J.M. Peterson, J.M. Crespi, and J. D. Roe. BMPs For Sale! Implications from a Case Study in BMP Auctions. The Journal of Regional Analysis & Policy 42(December 2012): 151-161. http://www.jrap-journal.org/pastvolumes/2010/v42/v42_n2_a5_smith_leatherman.pdf Smith, C.M., J.M. Peterson, J.C. Leatherman, and J.R. Williams. A Simulation of Factors Impeding Water Quality Trading. The Journal of Regional Analysis & Policy. 42(December 2012): 162-176. http://www.jrap-journal.org/pastvolumes/2010/v42/v42_n2_a6_smith_peterson.pdf Sun, Y., G. Niu, P. Osuna, G. Ganjegunte, D. Auld , L. Zhao, J. Gardea-Torresdey, and J. Peralta. 2013. Seedling emergence and Growth of Ricinus communis L. Cultivars Irrigated with Saline Solution. Industrial Crops and Products.49:75-80. Suter. J.F., J.M. Spraggon, and G.L. Poe. 2013. Thin and Lumpy: an Experimental Investigation of Water Quality Trading. Water Resources and Economics 1: 36-60. Suter, J.F., and C.A. Vossler. Forthcoming. Towards an Understanding of the Performance of Ambient Tax Mechanisms in the Field: Evidence from Upstate New York Dairy Farmers. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Taylor, C. R. and R. D. Lacewell. 2013. Playing Chicken with Environmental & Health Risks: Litigation Over Phosphorus Pollution & Bacteria in the Scenic Illinois River Watershed of Oklahoma. presentation at annual meeting of the University Council on Water Resources, June 2013,Lake Tahoe, CA. Proceedings abstract. Taylor, C. R., R. Rodriguez-Kabana, and R. D. Lacewell. 2013. Visions of Food & Agricultural Systems for the Future. presentation at annual meeting of the University Council on Water Resources, June 2013,Lake Tahoe, CA. Proceedings abstract. Taylor, G., R.D. Schmidt, L. Stodick, and B. Contor. A Partial Equilibrium Model of Hydrologic Externalities" International Water Resource Economics Consortium 10th Annual Meeting with World Water Week. Stockholm, Sweden. Aug. 2012. Taylor, R. G., L. Stodick B. Contor, R D Schmidt. Modeling Conjunctive Water Use as a Reciprocal Externality" American Journal of Agricultural Economics 2014. Watson, P. and G. Taylor. Impacts and Benefit of Prior Appropriations Based Water Calls: A Constrained Nested CGE Analysis. Western Regional Science Association 52st annual meeting. Santa Barbara CA Feb 2013. White, R. and M. Brady. Consumer Willingness to Pay for Meat Production Practices that Reduce Environmental Impact, a Meta-Analysis. Presented at the Joint Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association, July 8-12, 2013. Wolfson, L., 2012. Multiple Impacts on Michigan Waters Possible Due to Climate Change. Lake Effect. Michigan Chapter, North American Lake Management Society. June, Pages: 2, 6. Yoder, J. 2012. Water rights, markets, and prices: helping water flow toward high valued use. Invited presentation, 5th Annual Meeting and Symposium, Washington State Academy of Sciences, September 20. Seattle, WA. Yoder, J., A. Ohler, and H. Chouinard. 2012. What floats your boat? Preference revelation from lotteries over complex goods. Invited seminar, Department of Economics, University of Nevada, Reno. April 20.

Impact Statements

Results to date from research in Texas have indicated that salt tolerant cultivars of switchgrass, sorghum and canola produced as much biomass/seed yield under elevated salinity as they did under freshwater irrigation. Camelina did not perform well under elevated salinity.
Soil salinity in Texas generally increased under irrigation with marginal quality water but sodicity remained under threshold, indicating that most of the salinity increase was due to solubilization of calcium salts, which is not expected not impair soil permeability.
Texas researchers determined that field scale soil salinity distribution data by EMI method will help in the development of appropriate salinity management practices.
Powell Research and Extension Center (PREC) Competitive Graduate Student Assistantship. 2013. Effects of Deficit Irrigation on Growth, Yield, and Quality of Confection Sunflower. PI: A. Garcia y Garcia. coPIs: A. Mesbah and K. Hansen. (August 2013-August 2016) $40,000.
University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station Competitive Grants Program. 2013. Economic impacts of climate change and drought on Wyoming ranchers: a critical evaluation. Ritten, Bastian, Derner, Lake, Mount, Paisley, D. Peck, J. Reeves. (2013-2015) $65,591.
The Process-based Adaptive Watershed Simulator (PAWS) IDSS model developed at Michigan State University, is a hydrologic model that is coupled with reactive transport models to address water quantity and quality and is recommended for use by farmers and/or the Water Users Committees to describe important flow and transport with the ability to predict future changes in water quantity and quality.
Arkansas Water Resources Center grant. Economics of On-Farm Reservoirs across the Arkansas Delta Region: A conjunctive management approach to preserving groundwater and water quality. K. Kovacs
G. Schaible found that irrigation efficiency varies significantly across farm-size, but it ranges from 22 - 26 % higher for the largest irrigated farms across gravity vs. pressure-sprinkler irrigation. However, there still exists significant room for improvement in irrigation efficiency among all farm sizes.
Research products from USDA-ERS (G. Schaible) demonstrate that taking farm-size into account matters when establishing and implementing agricultural water conservation programs. The largest irrigated farms (farms with more than $500,000 in sales) dominate western irrigated agriculture, where 15% of irrigated farms (the largest farms) account for 61% of the regions irrigated acreage and 66% of onfarm applied water.
G. Schaible found that irrigation efficiency varies significantly across farm-size, but it ranges from 22 - 26 % higher for the largest irrigated farms across gravity vs. pressure-sprinkler irrigation. However, there still exists significant room for improvement in irrigation efficiency among all farm sizes.
Research at USDA-ERS (G. Schaible) concluded that a sustainable future for irrigated agriculture likely requires a broader water-conservation policy focus than the traditional emphasis on physical irrigation application systems. With rising non-agricultural water demands and expected climate-change impacts, how water is managed once it reaches the farm will become much more important.
Research in Missouri (J. Jones), using a 37-year dataset from Lake of the Ozarks, determined if water quality changed as a consequence of a 70% increase in population growth in the region near the lake shore since 1970. No change is phosphorus was apparent, rather hydrology accounts for over 80% of the 5-fold range in phosphorus values in this lake over the time period.
Continued monitoring by B. Hurd of the impacts and severity of ongoing drought in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas on agricultural producers and production costs, shows additional needs for drought coping strategies and contingent relief, especially for disadvantaged producers and communities.
Small system irrigators in Northern New Mexico are found by New Mexico researchers to have high stress and concern levels with regard to existing water and land use policies. Environmental and community water-based systems are experiencing high stress levels as reported in community forums and workshops.
Irrigators in the Elephant Butte Irrigation district were found by B. Hurd to be relying heavily on the aquifer system to adapt to the ongoing 3 year drought in New Mexico. The economic value of access to the local aquifer, even with elevated salinity levels, is estimated at about $15 million per year.
As a result of M. Eiswerths service on the advisory board of the One World One Water Center of MSU Denver, citizens, politicians and stakeholders will have a better understanding of impending water gaps in the semiarid West, linkages to climate change and population growth, and the menu of available options to address those gaps.
Students, stakeholders and citizens will increase their knowledge of state and regional water-energy linkages via the creation of an Energy Research and Education Initiative at the University of Northern Colorado (M. Eiswerth).
The theme of the special issue of the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research (April/July 2013) is "Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impact and Potential Adaptations." This issue gathers the results of W2190 research into a single product that is widely distributed and available to policy makers and researchers across a wide range of disciplines.
Research conducted in Kansas finds that unevenness in the base elevation is an important source of variation in many basins but its consequences have not been investigated. Users in deep and shallow areas of an aquifer are found to impose external costs that are asymmetric, depending on the effect of saturated thickness on irrigation rents. Uniform policies may be inefficient and increase rent inequalities.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant. Adaptation of Western US Agriculture to Climate Change Induced Water Scarcity. A. Dinar
Relative quantities of water used in shale gas fracturing in the Barnett Shale Play in Texas were found to be small compared to other uses such as irrigated agriculture and municipal and industrial uses.
D. Peck was on the AgMIP-ERS Water Workshop Planning Board and participated in the AgMIP-ERS Workshop: integrating water scarcity into future agricultural assessments. The workshops intended long-term impact: to improve predictions of climate change impacts on agriculture through more-effective integration of hydrological, agronomic, and economic models.
K. Schoengold found that fixed price input contracts are expected to increase the use of precision technology. This shows that using fixed prices instead of increased rates may provide the same conservation benefits.
D. Megeressa and K. Schoengold found that the biofuel policy may exacerbate problems associated with the depletion of the High Plains aquifer, especially under climate change. Impacts will depend on water management policies.
K. Schoengold, P. Shrestha, and M. Eiswerth (W2190) find that drought affects the demand for whitewater rafting in Colorado. However, negative media coverage of the drought had a larger role. This shows the importance of limiting negative coverage when conditions do not warrant it.
As a result of B. Colbys research, federal and state agency water managers, irrigation district managers and private agriculturally linked enterprises demonstrate a better understanding of the economic benefits of remote sensing in measuring and monitoring reduced consumptive use for temporary and intermittent water transfers.
B. Colby finds that temporary and intermittent irrigation forbearance agreements are more likely to prove cost effective when advanced remote sensing techniques are integrated into their monitoring and enforcement protocols.
If implemented, based on guidelines developed in research by B. Colby, temporary and intermittent irrigation forbearance arrangements are likely to have lower rates of conflict and transaction costs.
Funded grant: N. Brozovic, An online clearing house for trading resource use rights with environmental and spatial constraints, National Science Foundation I-Corps Team Program, $50,000, 2013.
An intended outcome of N. Brozovics research is to develop and implement market mechanisms to reallocate groundwater pumping across space to improve agricultural profits and environmental conditions. A grant-funded pilot study (including K. Schoengold and C. Speir as co-PIs) is working to implement an online groundwater market in Nebraska in late 2013/early 2014.
G. Schaibles research finds that conservation policy should be more focused on producer adoption of efficient "irrigation production systems," integrating improved onfarm water management with efficient application systems while also enhancing producer ability to participate in watershed-scale water water-management options (conserved water rights, option water markets, drought water banks, etc.).
The new Principles and Guidelines are requiring federal agencies to conduct Cost Benefit Analysis on a watershed scope and account for ecosystem services. The spatial partial equilibrium model developed by Idaho researchers provides the Bureau of Reclamation project managers with an integrated hydrologic economic planning tool that is watershed in scope and incorporates hydrologic externalities.
The Idaho research teams rule curve research will assist the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation in rewriting their archaic rule curves.
Ongoing work in New Mexico has examined economic impacts of alternative water sharing systems. Results from Afghanistan and Iraq (USGS funding) have shown that a proportional sharing of shortages can reduce impacts from droughts by more than the existing upstream priority system.
Subsidies of conversion from surface to drip irrigation were found by researchers in New Mexico to increase farm income, improve food security, and reduce water applications to crops. However those subsidies have the potential to increase crop water consumption (ET).
L. McCanns article with J. Arocha on behavioral economics has been entered as evidence in California water policy discussions.
The estimated value of water in shale gas production in Texas showed a very wide range from highly positive to negative depending on natural gas prices, impacting the use of water or other methods.
D. Peck and K. Hansens graduate student finished a mathematical programming model to explore the potential for a tradable water quantity and quality permit system to alleviate disputes between agricultural producers and energy companies over the disposal of by-product water from coalbed methane extraction in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming.
D. Peck and K. Hansen were interviewed by Wyoming Public Radio about the Economic implications of the NRCS Agricultural Water Enhancement Program in Laramie County, WY. The story aired throughout the state on March 15, 2013; a brief quote from our interview was included.
Results from an analysis of groundwater trade participation show that hydroeconomic variables are important in determining trade participation. K. Schoengold and N. Brozovic are working with the Upper Republican NRD to set up a groundwater market for irrigators. This will help irrigators and the District manage a limited groundwater allocation more effectively.
Collaborators are working on combining and analyzing groundwater management information from several states (TX, NE, KS) and through an interdisciplinary framework. Several W2190 members (J. Peterson, N. Brozovic, C. Speir, K. Schoengold) are participants on a grant proposal to fund this work.
Much of the Michigan research teams advice/inputs to the Michigan Department of Environmental Qualitys Water Use Council have been accepted and will be incorporated into the Councils recommendations.
The Michigan research teams White Paper on Water Strategy for Michigan: Agricultural Expansion and Water Resource Protection for the Governors Water Task Force has been presented and incorporated as a component of the Governors Great Lakes Water Task Force Report.
Publications and presentations that are part of an Arizona project (B. Colby) are being used in public agencies and also by irrigation district managers to inform their decisions related to temporary water transactions.
Dry year leases, dry year options, water banking and other innovative arrangements are being more frequently considered in Arizona as strategies to help cities, environmental programs and water using industries cope with extended drought in their region.
Consideration of temporary and intermittent voluntary water transfers between agriculture, municipalities and environmental programs in Arizona is becoming more common to help cost-effectively adapt to supply variability and extended drought. Such agreements are likely to be more cost effective and stable across varying climate and economic conditions.

Date of Annual Report: 01/13/2015

Report Information

Annual Meeting Dates: 09/30/2014 - 09/30/2014
Period the Report Covers: 10/01/2013 - 09/01/2014

Participants

Bonnie Colby (bcolby@ag.arizona.edu) - University of Arizona; Ariel Dinar (adinar@ucr.edu) - University of California, Riverside; Mark Eiswerth (Mark.Eiswerth@unco.edu) - University of Northern Colorado; Todd Guilfoos (guilfoos@uri.edu) - University of Rhode Island; Kristi Hansen (kristi.hansen@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming; Ray Huffaker (rhuffaker@ufl.edu) - University of Florida; Ari Michelsen (amichelsen@ag.tamu.edu) - Texas A&M University; Dannele Peck (dpeck@uwyo.edu) - University of Wyoming; Jeff Peterson (jpeters@ksu.edu) - Kansas State University; Glenn Schaible (schaible@ers.usda.gov) - USDA Economic Research Service; Karina Schoengold (kschoengold2@unlnotes.unl.edu) - University of Nebraska; Jordan Suter (Jordan.Suter@colostate.edu) - Colorado State University; Garth Taylor (gtaylor@uidaho.edu) - University of Idaho

Brief Summary of Minutes

Minutes of W3190 Meeting October 23-24, 2014 Gainesville, FL; submitted by Jordan Suter

This is the first annual meeting of W3190 summarizing the final year of W2190

Officers for the past year: Chair; Karina Schoengold, Nebraska; Vice-Chair Aaron Benson, Texas; Secretary; Jordan Suter, Colorado.

October 23, 2014, Morning session

8:45 AM – Meeting begins with initial introduction by Ray Huffaker and Karina Schoengold.

8:45 AM – Ray introduces Dorota Hamon, Chair of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.

8:46 AM – Dorota Hamon provides an overview of the department, highlighting faculty work related to water resources. Undergraduate and graduate degree programs were also described. Ari Michelsen asks several questions related to departmental funding.

9:00 AM – Attendee introductions are made.

9:05 AM – Wendy Graham, Director of the University of Florida Water Institute provides a discussion of her institute. The primary mission of the institute is to bring together talent from UF to address complex, multi-disciplinary research, education and outreach. Faculty affiliated with the Institute (currently over 200) seek to understand interactions between humans and aquatic systems for improved water management and policy. Approximately 2/3 of this research is focused on Florida with the remaining 1/3 either non-place specific or outside of Florida. The institute sponsors a symposium, seminar series, expert assistance and peer review services, grad fellows program, faculty fellows program, public awareness and education related to water, and interdisciplinary research programs.

9:30 AM – Wendy Graham continues her presentation by highlighting specific research projects facilitated by the UF Water Institute. She provides a rich set of details on research in the Santa Fe basin of Florida that seeks a better understanding of the geophysical mechanisms through which storm events impact water quality in the watershed. This includes modeling of the age of water and nutrients at various points in the watershed.

10:15 AM – Ray Huffaker introduces Rafael “Rafa” Muñoz-Carpena, a hydrologist faculty member of ABE whose research focuses on integrated environmental systems engineering with applications in Amazonia and other parts of the world.

10:25 AM – Ray Huffaker provides presentation intended to motivate the importance of non-linear dynamic modelling. Some of the motivation for improving the predictive power of dynamic models comes from the failure of macroeconomic dynamic equilibrium models to predict the 2007 financial crisis. Congress has demanded more accountability and governments in other parts of the world (Europe) are implementing audits of predictive models. Ray quotes recent academic articles reiterating that all models are wrong, but some models are useful. The question then becomes how a researcher can be confident that their model does indeed usefully predict future outcomes. The integrative, non-linear dynamic models that Ray advocates start with the observed outcome and then attempt to reconstruct the underlying dynamics of the system (akin to reverse engineering). Ray outlines a specific application of his modeling approach to the modeling of total phosphorous in the Everglades agricultural area.

11:10: Dannele Peck provides handouts for the recently approved W3190 proposal but discussion of the proposal is tabled until Friday morning out of interest of time.

October 23, 2014, Afternoon

Group travels by van for a catered lunch at the UF Plant Science Research and Education Unit. Lunch is followed by an extensive tour of the research fields and facilities.

Group travels to the Prairie Creek Preserve, which is operated by the Florida State Park System. The preserve features unique hydrogeology in that it is a closed basin that funnels water into the aquifer that lies beneath. Alligator sightings were also a primary feature of the tour.

October 23, 2014, Morning

8:40 AM The minutes from 2013 meeting are introduced. Dannele Peck made a motion to accept minutes. The motion was seconded by Glenn Schaible and unanimously approved by the group.

8:45 AM Dannele Peck introduced the outline for the approved W3190 proposal. She handed out a hard copy of the presentation that she formulated in Presi. The group collectively thanks Dannele and Kristi Hansen for their roles in writing and finalizing the proposal. Dannele mentions that in future proposals, it will be essential to demonstrate evidence of interconnected research amongst W3190 members.

8:50 AM Karina Schoengold mentioned the possibility of putting together a conference session with W3190 research. Glenn Schaible mentioned that in the past, the group has put together a session at the Western Agricultural Economics Association meetings. Dannele Peck said that it would be ideal if this type of session could occur at a meeting that also includes policy makers, not just academics.

8:55 AM Ari Michelsen asked if it is still possible to make changes to the approved W3190 proposal, as he wanted to add additional projects that W3190 members are working on. Bonnie Colby suggested that one way of encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration would be to host a conference session at an engineering or crop and soil science conference.

9:00 AM Karina Schoengold says that in the interest of showing the impact that our research has on stakeholders, it is a good idea to include popular media articles in the annual reports. She also reminded members that the special issue of the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research highlighting research from W2190 members and edited by Dannele Peck and Jeff Peterson was recently published (October 2014) in book form.

9:05 AM Karina Schoengold informed members that a grant proposal for a combined meeting with WERA 1020 in Salt Lake City, UT has been submitted through the hard work of Karina and Kristi Hansen. The goal of the proposal is to fund a joint workshop to bring in stakeholders that reflect different topics important to water management. If this is proposal is funded then W3190 meeting plans are taken care of for 2015. If this proposal is not funded, then possible venues for next year’s meeting include Denver, CO; Fort Collins, Co; Imperial, NE; and Lincoln, NE. The ideal date for the meeting would be the weekend of October 22-23. Glenn Schaible proposed having the meeting in year four or five of the proposal in DC, hosted by ERS, to better connect the researchers with government stakeholders.

9:15 AM Karina Schoengold brought up the topic of next year’s W3190 leadership. Vice-chair Aaron Benson has recently left Texas Tech, meaning that two leadership positions need to be filled. The group approved Todd Guilfoos (Rhode Island) as the incoming secretary and Jordan Suter (CSU) as the incoming chair. Mark Eisworth (U. Northern Colorado) is nominated as the incoming vice-chair, but discussion of the position is tabled while Mark and the committee determine whether he is able to serve in a leadership position given that he is not a part of a land grant institution.

9:30 AM Karina Schoengold informed members that Chennet Gopalakrishan has agreed to produce a special issue of the Natural Resources Policy Research if proposal for next year’s conference is funded. Even if the proposal is not funded then the journal would still be interested in hosting a special issue from general research by W3190. Garth Taylor asked the group for ideas about a theme for this issue. Karina Schoengold proposed the idea of groundwater management and Garth suggested that an issue on conjunctive groundwater-surface water management would work well. Ideas were also put forward for distributing policy briefs associated with research articles. Garth Taylor’s water blog (list-serve) is mentioned as one possible venue for these policy briefs. The International Water Resource Economics Consortium was mentioned as a possible venue for such briefs as was the Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska.

10:00 AM State reporting

Bonnie Colby – has been working on research related to water and ecosystem services in Northwest Mexico through funding from the Walton and Hewlett Foundations. She also receives regular research funding from the Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA. The Colorado River in the US gets most of the attention, while less attention is paid to CO river delta in Mexico. She is working with grad students on farm budgets, payments for ecosystem services based on differential flows of freshwater into delta.
Separate research looks at commercial fisheries (shrimp) in the delta. The research has discovered that fish bladder extraction for Asian medicinal markets and narcotics running by fishing boats often dwarf the economic incentives associated with traditional fisheries. Bonnie is also working on research that aims to determine the value of improved freshwater flows. She is working with Brian Hurd on water banking in the Pecos and other river basins to understand how water banks reduce transaction costs. Another set of research looks at rotational fallowing for water management. The research stresses the importance of identifying consumptive water use in order to provide appropriate payments for conservation.

Ray Huffaker – briefly discussed his continuing research related to non-linear dynamic modeling of water resource dynamics. He had discussed this research in more depth the previous morning.

Ari Michelsen – described his interdisciplinary research projects related to the effects of soil and water salinity on agricultural production, bioenergy, and hydraulic fracturing and water use. The fracking research is in the Barnett basin and was the first area to have fracking. The research found that approximately 1 percent of water used in the area goes for fracking. On average, a fracking well uses approximately eight acre feet of water and most rights are purchased from surface water rights holders. Fracking typically represents a fully consumptive use of water as water is it is very expensive to reuse. Ari along with other researchers in Texas are continuing work on developing the Texas water plan.

Ariel Dinar – is currently working on two big initiatives that involve researchers from multiple universities to deal with water issues on the lower Colorado. The team has a proposal submitted to NIFA’s water challenge RFA. One research project evaluates the impact of climate change on agriculture in California’s desert regions. A literature review of climate change economics has been completed as part of this research. The researchers are now surveying extension professionals to understand how they think that farmers should adapt to different levels of water scarcity. The second stage of the project will utilize a contingent valuation approach in each county asking farmers questions about how they might respond to levels of water scarcity. Ariel is also working with ecologists on issues in the Sea of Cortez that will use lab experiments and modeling of the upper, lower, and Mexico units of the Colorado basin. The research seeks to identify ways of generating incentives so that each part of the basin is willing to cooperate. The experimental design is complete and the ecological response functions are being constructed. A final project that Ariel is working on involves water markets in CA. Specifically, he is evaluating how impediments at the county level influence the efficacy of water markets using county level transaction data across 74 years. The theoretical model is constructed and needs to be applied to data.

Garth Taylor – urged the group to utilize Bryce Contor’s water demand calculator that provides detailed output for a field, crop, or region. He urged fellow group members to do more work on conjunctive water use and stressed the importance of Bureau of Reclamation canals in sustaining aquifers throughout the region.

Kristi Hansen– described a recent publication in the Natural Resources Journal that looks at water trading across 12 states to understand how institutions influence the type of trading activity (leases or sales). She also discussed a publication that evaluates water markets in California and how dry year options may increase efficiency. Her ongoing research involves work on payments for water-based ecosystem service programs in the North Platte River. She is also working on research in the Green River Basin through NSF EPSCOR. In particular she is looking at the economic effects of upstream curtailment.

Glenn Schaible – indicated that the 2013 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey will be made available to the public on November 16th and is now integrated with USDA’s horticulture survey (making direct comparisons of 2008 to 2013 data more difficult). He also described a second data project under the water science initiative for water, energy, and food nexus with goals of increasing understanding of water and food systems; water and energy efficiency in food sectors; reducing pollution; and mitigating depletion of freshwater aquifers. Glenn also mentioned current research using the 2007 ag census and 2008 FRIS, specifically on irrigated farms on Native American land. He has also been involved with research at ERS focusing on the California drought of 2014, looking at farm and food impacts. Finally, he discussed the development of groundwater data farm sector analysis. The initiative will be led by Jeffery Savage to integrate USGS aquifer data and state-level well data with USDA conservation and farm survey data. The data will be useful in developing a dynamic hydro-economic model of the Ogallala aquifer for water management policy instruments that accounts for aquifer characteristics.

Todd Guilfoos – is working with Jeff Petersen on research in the Kansas Ogallala Aquifer that attempts to simplify the economic policy space and understand the behavior of the LEMAs and cooperation amongst farmers. Todd’s research utilizes agent-based models as well as experiments to understand what drives decision-making in common pool resources. He also has a research project that it is in the early stages looking at how historical water uses impacted regional development in the US. In late June he will be leading the organization of a workshop sponsored by the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association on water quality in Newport, RI.

Mark Eisworth – has recently finished up research projects on wildfire, drought, water, and invasives. He is also working on understanding why some lakes in the Midwest, which were once heavily used for recreation, have seen large declines in recreational use.

Jordan Suter – has recently published two articles related to experimental analyses of groundwater use. The first article evaluated behavior when catastrophic contamination of a groundwater resource is possible. Treatments vary the type of information that subjects have related to the contamination to better understand the benefits of information provision on improving sustainability. The second article investigates how dynamic groundwater features related to the speed of lateral flow influence both resource entry and the quantity of resource use. Jordan is currently working on a set of experiments that implement policies that seek to limit groundwater use at both the intensive (pumping) and extensive (entry) margins. He, along with Chris Goemans and Dale Manning at CSU are also set to initiate research related to the economic effects of groundwater conservation policies in the Republican River Basin of Colorado.

Dannele Peck – has not done research specifically on water resources in the past year, but encourages research that incorporates whole farm decision-making related to water scarcity that includes flexible rotations.

Jeff Peterson – has research underway measuring transaction costs in payment for ecosystem service contracts. Given the high transaction costs that the researchers have found, the attributes of contracts would have to be very effective in influencing compliance for them to be efficient. Jeff is also evaluating the magnitude of common pool externalities related to longer-term trends in technology and climate change. He is also investigating the emerging LEMAs in Kansas and the extent to with they allow for new rules to be imposed on themselves. Research is also underway in collaboration with Nick Brozovic at Nebraska evaluating how declining well yield influence the decisions of groundwater users.

Karina Schoengold – Nebraska is using large buyouts of irrigated land that are then used to pipe water to meet surface water agreements. She has research underway on groundwater markets in Nebraska where trading activity has been observed. Karina has new publications related to tech adoption and input price uncertainty that finds that stochastic prices can lead to less adoption but this is not a general result. She has also published research on the impact of drought on conservation practices and government programs like crop insurance and disaster payments. Research underway currently looks at how climate risk influences drought management choices. She is also working with Jeff Petersen and Nick Brozovic to do comparative analysis of different groundwater management districts in the high plains aquifer and also putting together a database of groundwater features and behavior in the high plains. Karina is also working on research related to the influence of subsidies in Mexico on the efficiency of groundwater use.

12:15 – The meeting is closed after brief comments by Ray Huffaker.

Accomplishments

W2190 Objective 1. Develop farm-level irrigation strategies to address water quantity and quality problems. In California, researchers are studying the adoption of technologies and management practices by California Avocado growers in response to water scarcity and quality problems. J. Suter in collaboration with researchers at the U. of Delaware implemented lab experiments to understand the behavior of groundwater users subject to water quality contamination. G. Schaible completed a draft report that assesses the impacts and potential adaptations on U.S. agriculture due to shifting regional water balances associated with alternative climate change projections. K. Schoengold and coauthors (Sun, Sesmero) measured the impact of alternative groundwater cost sharing rules on irrigation use and production efficiency. A. Michelsen and coauthors continued research on determining the spatial distribution of field salinity using Electromagnetic Induction (EMI) technique, which efficiently provides accurate field scale soil salinity data. Research also continued on salt tolerance and performance of selected cultivars of bioenergy crops under elevated salinity conditions under greenhouse and field conditions. Objective 2: Examine regional water-related impacts associated with energy, environmental policy, and climate change. B. Colby estimated economic tradeoffs in providing increased freshwater flows to Upper Gulf of California's marine ecosystems through fallowing of irrigated cropland. She also improved methods for predicting and adapting to climate impacts in the water and electricity urban supply sectors, and for providing water for critical habitat needs. In addition she developed econometric models to investigate climate influences on the market price of water, and on water trading activity for urban and for habitat purposes as well as developing a framework for analyzing economics of advanced remote sensing techniques to measure and monitor water "savings" in irrigation forbearance agreements. In California, researchers are examining the impact of and adaptation to Climate Change Induced Water Scarcity in Southern California/Desert Agricultural Production Regions. They have also learned that shallow groundwater tables may supply as much as half of the crop water demand and recycled water use may cause some salinization of the root zone, but rainfall leaching may be adequate when in excess of about 15 in/yr. M. Eiswerth initiated a new research project (examining linkages between drought, wildfire, in situ water levels, and water-based recreation) that was engendered directly by linkages internal to W2190 project. He also made contacts with numerous external stakeholders (government agency representatives and private industry firms) as a direct result of new collaborative linkages internal to W2190. G. Shaible developed initial comparative static analysis of irrigation/water-mgmt practices across Native Am. Indian (NAI) and other Non-NAI irrigated farms using Ag. Census (07) and FRIS (08) data sets. He, along with an ERS team, helped to develop the ERS webpage titled "California Drought 2014: Farm & Food Impacts". It identifies California's resource & economic exposure to the current drought and an ERS capacity-building project to integrate key USGS hydrologic data with USDA irrigation survey data to improve GW mgmt. modeling analyses. G. Taylor found that non-market valuation of water is required when the market fails. The research into the non-market valuation of water ecosystem services using travel cost models. Taylor also studied agricultural water demand with agriculture diverting 90% of the water in the West, quantifying agricultural water demand is critical to almost every water research endeavor. J. Peterson and D. Peck edited a special issue of the JNRPR on "Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impact and Potential Adaptations" and the volume was published as a book. Peterson also developed a stochastic dynamic model to characterize common pool groundwater use under climate change and the gains from optimal management. L. McCann and J. Jones have conducted a survey of homeowners in an urbanizing watershed. Data is being used to examine the factors affecting adoption of drought tolerant plants. They have quantified carbon sequestration and seasonal carbon dioxide flux in the sediments of agricultural reservoirs in Missouri. The research has also quantified historic variation in nutrients and algal biomass in Missouri reservoirs as determined by normal, dry and wet years over the past 3 decades. K. Schoengold supervised C. Shaneyfelt, who completed an MS thesis on "Irrigation Demand in a Changing Climate: Using disaggregate data to predict future groundwater use". K. Schoengold and coauthors published a paper that measured the effect of climate and ag policy programs on the use of conservation practices that reduce production risk from drought. K. Schoengold and D. Sunding published a paper estimating the impacts of stochastic versus fixed water prices on the adoption of precision irrigation technology using data from California. K. Schoengold led a team to implement a producer-level survey to determine how producers have and will respond to increased climate risk (changing water use is one possible response). T. Guilfoos developed a model that incorporates uncertainty and persistence of drought conditions and also adds spatial stock externalities. A. Michelsen and coauthors studied the value of water used in hydraulic fracturing in the Barnett and Eagle Ford Shale Plays. Water used in hydraulic fracturing was found to be much higher compared to water values in both agriculture and urban uses. Relative to agriculture and municipal users, the water used for hydraulic fracturing is minimal, accounting for less than two percent for the Barnett Shale. K. Hansen is incorporating water management data and economic information into a hydro-economic model of the Colorado River Upper Basin States (part of an NSF EPSCoR grant). Objective 3: Investigate Alternative Water Policy and Management Institutions. K. Kovacs has two funded grants, two publications, and four presentations related to sustainable water management in the Mississippi Delta. B. Colby, in collaboration with Reclamation, are developing and evaluating pilot water leasing programs to accomplish specific federal objectives. She is also evaluating irrigation district and grower costs and benefits associated with fallowing land to produce "saved" water for urban and environmental needs. In addition, Colby is examining new water banking initiatives and innovations worldwide and summarizing features most applicable for the southwestern U.S and summarizing experience worldwide with online water trading and highlighting features most applicable for the southwestern U.S. In California, researchers are developing experiments to test sustainability of GW management under uncertainty and with provision of public good alternatives and studying impediments to water trade in California. J. Suter conducted lab experiments at Colorado State University that evaluated the behavioral effects of policies that influence incentives at the intensive and extensive margins of groundwater use. G. Schaible worked with the Office of Science & Tech. Policy (OSTP) to develop a budgetary data initiative to improve water/irrigation data across Irrigation Districts to improve climate change analyses. He completed review/assessment (with USDA's NASS) of draft 2013 FRIS data summary reports (for integrated crop and horticulture sectors) and is organizing research on factors affecting farmers decisions to deficit irrigate and how institutional constraints on water use may impact these decisions. Schaible also completed the ERS Agricultural Normalized Price Estimates for 2014. A congressionally mandated ERS obligation used by Fed. agencies to evaluate benefits of agriculture-related projects. G. Taylor conducted basin wide water allocation modeling. The biggest failing in ecosystem services valuation is providing a context or framework in which to rank social welfare. His research also found that reservoir management has been crippled by decades old rule curves and studied E. Coli irrigation water regulations. Idaho’s water issues have largely been limited to quantity problems. In 2013, irrigation water quality became a problem. N. Brozovic continued analyses of the economic and resource impacts of policies to manage agricultural groundwater use in the High Plains region. J. Bartholic reviewed groundwater case studies of other states (AZ and NE) for good practices in managing water resources, especially policies dealing with sustainable use of groundwater resources. In addition, he conducted the first survey focusing on large water users and their conservation behaviors, and a second survey focusing on understanding local stakeholders and their networks in project area and continued developing a watershed model to be used by local stakeholders for predicting climate change impact scenarios by gathering data, calibrating and verifying three hydrologic models. L. McCann is working with a Ph.D. student, Yubing Fan, to examine existing water institutions in the Midwest and potential alternatives to adapt to increasing drought. R. Hearne established cooperation with Anthony Prato (formerly University of Missouri) to assess institutional evolution in the Missouri River basin. K. Schoengold and D. Zilberman published a paper that evaluates the feasibility of using tiered pricing for water to achieve joint goals of economic efficiency and equity. T. Guilfoos developed computational methods to look at competition of local water management institutions in Kansas and measure the benefits to cooperation vs. competing of these institutions. A. Michelsen evaluated agricultural water demand for 50 years in the Regional State Water Plans with the finding that urbanization of agricultural land was underestimated. K. Hansen, with collaborators, is establishing a conservation exchange for the provision of ecosystem services (to preserve water resources and wildlife/riparian habitat) in southwestern WY. She is also working with a graduate student examining alternative policies to help irrigation districts store water in federal projects on the North Platte River in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. D. Peck, as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, organized the review process and provided technical editing for 2 eventually published water-related manuscripts.

Publications

Allen, Thomas, Ronald Lacewell and Michele Zinn. 2014. Water Value and Economic Implications of Hydraulic Fracturing: Eagle Ford Shale. Texas Water Resources Institute TR-466. Allen, Thomas. 2014. Texas A&M Undergraduate Scholar Program. Thesis: Water Value and Environmental Implications of Hydraulic Fracturing: Eagle-Ford Shale. Outstanding Texas A&M University Undergraduate Thesis for 2014. Ashraf, A., A. Dinar, E. Monteiro, and T. Gaston, Science and Economic Aspects of Impact of and Adaptation to Climate Change Induced Water Scarcity in Western US Agricul-ture, University of California Water Science and Policy Center, Working Paper 01-0214, January 2014 (http://wspc.ucr.edu/working_papers/WSPC_WP_01_0214_climate%20change%20water%20scarcity%20western%20us.pdf) Azzam, A., G. Nene, and K. Schoengold "Does Environmental Regulation Hinder Hog Production Expansion? The Answer is More Complicated than the Question", Cornhusker Economics (September 2014). Azzam, A., Nene, G. and Schoengold, K. (2014), "Hog Industry Structure and the Stringency of Environmental Regulation" Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics. doi: 10.1111/cjag.12053 Baerenklau, K., K. Schwabe, and A. Dinar, Residential Water Demand Effect of Increasing Block Rate Water Budgets, Land Economics, (Accepted for Publication, February 5, 2014). Bartholic, J. 2013. Spatial Decision Support Systems - Partnerships: Managing Land Use for Sustainability. Honored Invited Presenter at the 2013 International Conference on Water Sustainability in Arid Regions held at Lanzhou University in Lanzhou, Peoples Republic of China. 12-14 August, 36 pp, in Proceedings. Bartholic, J. 2013. Managing Water Resources to Protect Ecologic Services with Increased Uncertainty. Invited: Presented at 2013 UCOWR/NIWR Annual Conference on Sustaining Water Resources and Ecological Functions in Changing Environments. Lake Tahoe, CA, 11-13 June. In Proceedings, Session 3: Policy for Water Supply Management. Bartholic, J. 2013. Professional and Multi-generational Interdisciplinary Water Resources Education. Invited as Plenary speaker: Presented at 2013 UCOWR/NIWR Annual Conference on Sustaining Water Resources and Ecological Functions in Changing Environments. Lake Tahoe, CA, 11-13 June. In Proceedings, Plenary Session IV: Interdisciplinary Water Resources Education. Bartholic, J. 2013. White Paper at the request of The Honorable Governor Snyder. Water Strategy for Michigan: Agricultural Expansion and Water Resource Protection. Prepared for integration into the Governor's Plan on Water for the State. Submitted September, 11 pp. Benson, Charles, P. Watson, R. G. Taylor, P. Cook, S. Hollenhorst. Who Visits a National Park and What do They Get Out of It?: A Joint Visitor Cluster Analysis and Travel Cost Model for Yellowstone National Park. Environmental Management. 52(2) 917-928, 2013. Bhagyam Chandrasekharan and Bonnie Colby, “Electricity Load Forecasting Improvements as a Climate Change Adaptation”, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, 2013. Blankespoor, B., Alan Basist, A. Dinar, S. Dinar, H. Houba, and N. Thomas, Assessing the Economic and Political Impacts of Climate Change on International River Basins Using Surface Wetness in the Zambezi and Mekong Basins, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Pa-per 14-005/II, January 2014 (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2375157). Botelho, A., A. Dinar, L. Pinto, and A. Rapoport, Time and Uncertainty in Resource Dilemmas: Equilibrium Solutions and Experimental Results, Experimental Economics, (Accepted for Publication, December 23, 2013), January, 2014, DOI 10.1007/s10683-013-9388-2. Brozovi?, N., and Young, R., 2014, Design and implementation of markets for groundwater pumping rights, in Water Markets for the 21st Century: What Have We Learned? (eds. K. Easter and Q. Huang). Bulatewicz, T., D. Andresen, S. Auvenshine, J.M. Peterson, and D.R. Steward. “A Distributed Data Component for the Open Modeling Interface. Environmental Modelling and Software 57(July 2014): 138-151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.02.017 Caldas, M.M., J.S. Bergtold, J.M. Peterson, R.W. Graves, D. Earnhart, S. Gong, B. Lauer, and J.C. Brown. “Factors Affecting Farmers’ Willingness to Grow Alternative Biomass Feedstocks for Biofuels across Kansas,” Biomass and Bioenergy 66(July 2014): 223-231. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.04.009 Colby, Bonnie, George Frisvold and Matthew Mealy, “Reallocating Climate Risks Through Water Trading”, Chapter 16 in Handbook of Water Economics, 2014. Colby, Bonnie, “Innovative Water Transactions to Meet Urban and Environmental Demands in the Face of Climate Change” Chapter 10 in Innovations in Water Markets, William Easter, editor, Springer book series on Global Issues in Water Policy, 2014. Contor, B. A. and Taylor, R. G. Why Improving Irrigation Efficiency Increases Total Volume of Consumptive Use. Irrigation and Drainage, 62(3) 273–280. July 2013 doi: 10.1002/ird.1717 Demissie, Y., Valocchi, A., Cai, X., Brozovi?, N., Senay, G., and Gebremichael, M., 2014, Parameter estimation for groundwater models under uncertain forcing data, Groundwater, DOI: 10.1111/gwat.12235. Dinar, A., Water and Economy-Wide Policy Interventions, Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, (Accepted for publication, May 12, 2014), 10(2):85–164, 2014. ERS, California Drought 2014: Farm and Food Impacts.An ERS webpage assessing exposure to drought across California, at: http://ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/california-drought-2014-farm-and-food-impacts.aspx#.VEQi0fnF98E . Fortin, Connie and N. Mulhern. 2013. Michigan’s Winter Maintenance Manual: Promoting Safe Roads and Clean Water. Edited by Lois Wolfson, MSU Extension, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. 45pp. This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Foster, T., Brozovi?, N., and Butler, A.P., 2014, Modeling irrigation behavior in groundwater systems, Water Resources Research, DOI: 10.1002/2014WR015620. Ganjegunte, G.K., Z. Sheng, and J.A. Clark. 2014. Soil Salinity and Sodicity Appraisal by Electromagnetic Induction in Irrigated Cotton Soils. Land Degradation & Development. 25:228-235. Goemans, C. and J. Pritchett. 2014. “Western Water Markets: Effectiveness and Efficiency.” in K.W. Easter and Q. Huang, Water Markets for the 21st. Century: What have we learned? Springer. Guilfoos T., Khanna N., Pape A. Groundwater Management: The Effect of Water Flows on Welfare Gains, Ecological Economics 95 (2013): 31-40. Hansen, K. (forthcoming). “Water Markets from Theory to Practice.” In Handbook of Water Economics, eds. A. Dinar and K. Schwabe. Edward Elgar. (Publication anticipated for 2015.) Hansen, K., R. Howitt, and J. Williams (forthcoming). “An Econometric Test of Water Market Institutions.” Natural Resources Journal 55(1). Hansen, K., J. Kaplan, and S. Kroll. 2014. “Valuing Options in Water Markets: A Laboratory Investigation.” Environmental and Resource Economics 57(1):59-80. Honey-Rosés, J., Schneider, D.W., and Brozovi?, N., 2014, Changing ecosystem services values following technological change. Environmental Management, v. 53(6), 1146-1157, DOI: 10.1007/s00267-014-0270-6. Harden, C.P., A. Chin, M.R. English, R. Fu, K.A. Galvin, A.K. Gerlak, P.F. McDowell, D.E. McNamara, J.M. Peterson, N.L. Poff, E.A. Rosa, W.D. Solecki, and E.E. Wohl. “Understanding Human-Landscape Interactions in the ‘Anthropocene’.” Environmental Management 53(2014): 4-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0082-0 Hearne, R. S. Shakya, and Q. Yin. Forthcoming. “The Value of Fracking Wastewater Treatment and Recycling Technologies in North Dakota.” Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination. Hearne, R. and G. Donoso. 2014. Water Markets in Chile: Are They Meeting Needs?. In K.W. Easter and Q. Huang (eds.), Water Markets for the 21st Century: What Have We Learned?, Global Issues in Water Policy 11, DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-9081-96,Springer. Dordrecht. Jiang Y., A. Dinar and P. Hellegers, Economics of Social Trade-off: Abatement Level vs. Ecosystem Damage, Water Science and Policy Center Working Paper 01-1113, November 2013. Jones J, Brett MT. 2014. Lake nutrients, eutrophication, and climate change. In: Freedman B, editor. Global environmental change. Dordrecht (Netherlands): Springer. p. 273–279. Joshi, V., Garcia y Garcia, and K. Hansen. 2014. “Deficit Irrigation of Confection Sunflowers.” University of Wyoming 2014 Field Days Bulletin. Kahil, M. T., A. Dinar and J. Albiac, Modeling Water Scarcity and Drought Severity for Pol-icy Adaptation to Climate Change: Application to the Jucar Basin, Spain, University of California Water Science and Policy Center, Working Paper 01-0114, January 2014 (http://wspc.ucr.edu/working_papers/WSPC_WP_01_0114_policy%20climate%20change%20jucar%20basin.pdf). Kovacs, K., M. Popp, K. Brye, G. West. “On-Farm Reservoir Adoption in the Presence of Spatially Explicit Groundwater Use and Recharge.” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, forthcoming. Kovacs, K., E. Wailes, G. West, J. Popp, K. Bektemirov. 2014. “Optimal Spatial-Dynamic Management of Groundwater Conservation and Surface Water Quality with On-Farm Reservoirs.” Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 46(4): 1-29. Legge, J.T., P.J. Doran, M.E. Herbert, J. Asher, G. O'Neil, S. Mysorekar, S. Sowa, and K.R. Hall. 2013. From model outputs to conservation action: Prioritizing locations for implementing agricultural best management practices in a Midwestern watershed. In Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 68(1):22-33. www.swcs.org. Lentz, A., Ando, A.W. and Brozovi?, N., 2013, Water quality trading with lumpy investments, credit stacking, and ancillary benefits, Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 1-18, DOI: 10.1111/jawr.12117. Li, J., H.A. Michael, J.M. Duke, K.D. Messer, and J.F. Suter. 2014. Impact of risk information in a spatially explicit groundwater environment with contamination risk: experimental evidence. Water Resources Research. 50: 6390–6405. Liu, Z., J.F. Suter, J.M. Duke, K.D. Messer, and H.A. Michael. F2014. Laboratory Evidence on Strategic Investment in Accessing Groundwater Resources. Resource and Energy Economics.38: 181-197. Loomis, J. and J. McTernan. 2014. Economic Value of Instream Flow for Non-Commercial Whitewater Boating Using Recreation Demand and Contingent Valuation Methods. Environmental Management 53(3): 510-519. McCann, Laura and Dustin Garrick. “Transaction Costs and Policy Design for Water Markets.” In: Water Markets for the 21st Century: What Have We Learned? Edited by K.W. Easter and Q.Q. Huang. Springer Netherlands. 2014. pp. 11-34. McCann, Laura, Haluk Gedikoglu, Bob Broz, John Lory, and Ray Massey. “Effects of Observability and Complexity on Farmers’ Adoption of Environmental Practices.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, (In Press, Published on-line June 25, 2014) McKean, J. R. Donn Johnson, R.G. Taylor. Estimating Tournament Effects on Sportfishing Demand. Tourism Economics. 2014, 20(4), 695-725 doi 10.5367/te.20130315. Michelsen, A.M. and R.D. Lacewell. 2013. Environmental and Related Impacts of Shale Gas Development - Case Study of the Barnett Shale: Water Economics. Prepared for the Energy Institute, The University of Texas at Austin. 61p. Palazzo, A., and Brozovi?, N., 2014, The role of groundwater trading in spatial water management, Agricultural Water Management, DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2014.03.004. Peck, D.E. and J.M. Peterson, Editors. Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. London: Taylor and Francis. 2015 (In press). http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138807334/ Peterson, J.M., C.M. Smith, John C. Leatherman, Nathan P. Hendricks, and John A. Fox. “Transaction Costs in Payment for Environmental Service Contracts.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 2014. doi:10.1093/ajae/aau071. Peterson, J.M., M. Caldas, J. Bergtold, B. Sturm, R. Graves, D. Earnhart, E. Hanley, and J. Brown. “Economic Linkages to Changing Landscapes.” Environmental Management 53 (2014): 55-66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0116-7 Pittman, B., J. R. Jones, J. Millspaugh, R. J. Kremer and J. A. Downing. 2013. Sediment organic carbon distribution in 4 small northern Missouri impoundments: implications for sampling and carbon sequestration. Inland Waters 3:39-46. Platts, B. and M.E. Grismer. 2014. Chloride levels increase after 13 years of recycled water use in the Salinas Valley. California Agriculture. 68(3): 68-74. Platts, B. and M.E. Grismer. 2014. Rainfall leaching is critical for long-term use of recycled water in the Salinas Valley. California Agriculture. 68(3): 75-81. Quall, Russ, Garth Taylor, Joel Hamilton, and Ayodeji Arogundade. Climate Change Opportunities for Idaho Irrigation Supply and Deliveries. ” Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. Eds J. Peterson and D. Peck, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. Oxford England 2014. Quall, Russ, Garth Taylor, Joel Hamilton, and Ayodeji Arogundade. Climate Change Opportunities for Idaho Irrigation Supply and Deliveries. special issue in Journal of Natural Resource Policy Research “Climate Variability and Water-Dependent Sectors” 5(2-3) 91-105, 2013 Schaible, Glenn. "ERS Agricultural Normalized Price Estimates for 2014," Available at ERS webpage: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/normalized-prices.aspx#.VEQqYfnF98E . Schoengold, K., P. Shrestha, and M. Eiswerth. The joint impact of drought conditions and media coverage on the Colorado rafting industry. In: Dannele E. Peck and Jeffrey M. Peterson (Eds.), Climate Variability and Water Dependent Sectors: Impacts and Potential Adaptations. Oxford: Routledge Publishing. 132 pp. In press. Schoengold, K., Y. Ding, and R. Headlee (2014) "The Impact of Ad hoc Disaster and Crop Insurance Programs on the Use of Risk Reducing Conservation Tillage Practices", American Journal of Agricultural Economics DOI: 10.1093/ajae/aau073. Schoengold, K. and D. L. Sunding (2014) "The Impact of Water Price Uncertainty on the Adoption of Precision Irrigation Systems", Agricultural Economics, available online: 1-April-2014 DOI: 10.1111/agec.12118 Schoengold, K. and D. Zilberman (2014) "The Economics of Tiered Pricing and Cost Functions: Are Equity, Cost Recovery, and Economic Efficiency Compatible Goals?", Water Resources and Economics, available online: 25-JUL-2014 at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wre.2014.07.002 Sheng, Z., M. Darr, J. P. King, J. Bumgarner, and A. Michelsen. 2013. Mesilla Basin/Conejos-Médanos Section of the Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program, in Alley, W.M. (ed.). Five-Year Interim Report to Congress of the United States - Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program: 2007 - 2012, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2013-1059, Reston, VA: p. 19-30. Strong, Aaron and C. Goemans. 2014. “Quantity Uncertainty and Demand: The Case of Water Smart Reader Ownership.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 14(3):669-694. Suter, J.F., and C.A. Vossler, 2014, Towards an Understanding of the Performance of Ambient Tax Mechanisms in the Field: Evidence from Upstate New York Dairy Farmers, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 96: 92-107. Swanepoel, G.D., J.C. Hadrich, and C.G. Goemans. 2014. “Estimating the Contribution of Groundwater Irrigation to Farmland Values in Phillips County, Colorado.” Journal of the ASFMRA. June 2014. Taylor, R. G., B. Contor, R D Schmidt, and L. Stodick “Modeling Conjunctive Water Use as a Reciprocal Externality" American Journal of Agricultural Economics 2014. Thupaki, P., P. Mantha, M. Nevers, R. Whitman. 2013. Modeling the Effects of Hydrologic Separation on the Chicago Area Waterway System on Water Quality in Lake Michigan. Final Project Technical Report submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE). The project was funded by the ACOE via the USGS-WRRI program through the Institute of Water Research at Michigan State University. Sun, Y., G. Niu, P. Osuna, L. Zhao, G. K. Ganjegunte, G. Peterson, J.R. Peralta-Videa, and J. L. Gardea-Torresdey. 2014. Variability in Salt Tolerance of Sorghum bicolor L. Agricultural Science. 2:9-21. Thomas, M., J. Piwarski, A. Asher. 2014. Mid-Michigan Health Impact Assessment Tool. Health Impact Assessment is defined as a combination of procedures, methods, and tools by which a policy, program, or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of those effects within the population. HIA identifies appropriate actions to manage those effects. A Regional HIA Toolkit will help facilitate the incorporation of health impacts into local planning, land use, transportation, and development design and permitting decisions in the municipalities in the Capital Region. http://35.8.121.111/hia/ Vossler, C.A., J.F. Suter, G.L. Poe, 2013, Experimental Evidence on Dynamic Pollution Tax Policies, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 93, 101-115. Wolfson, Lois. 2013. Lessons Shared – the Michigan Shoreline Conference, Michigan Natural Shoreline Partnership Newsletter, Vol 3(2): 5-6. Young, R. and J. Loomis. 2014. Determining the Economic Value of Water: Concepts and Methods, 2nd edition. 2nd edition, Resources for the Future Press (Taylor & Francis).

Impact Statements

Data collected from 120 representative avocado growers in California. Adoption models are developed and estimated, using the comprehensive dataset. Meeting with growers are held to share preliminary results. The data collection part of the study was funded by a grant ($25,000) from the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
Researchers at UC Davis continue investigation of alternative water sources for agriculture and find that shallow groundwater tables may supply as much as half of the crop water demand as well as gaining a better understanding of the effects of long-term recycled water use on soils associated with truck crop production.
Studies at UC Davis are directed at meeting grower and institutional demands for information so as to gain broader public acceptance of alternative water supplies during drought periods and beyond.
An ERS study finds that climate change alters the relative profitability of dryland and irrigated agriculture through the mid- to-late-century, increasing irrigation water demand in some regions and decreasing demand in other regions. Projected reductions in some regions may constrain irrigation production.
K. Schoengold, S. Sun, and J. Sesmero find that inefficient cost-sharing rules have a significant effect on the efficiency of groundwater use. Results also show that the magnitude of this effect on groundwater use is larger than the effect of subsidized electricity inputs.
Field scale soil salinity distribution data by EMI method is helping in the development of appropriate salinity management practices.
Soil salinity in Texas generally increased under irrigation with marginal quality water but sodicity remained under threshold, indicating that most of the salinity increase was due to solubilization of calcium salts, which is not expected not impair soil permeability.
Developed more cost-effective strategies for achieving reduced consumptive use in crop irrigation in order to make water available for other needs.
Better understanding of economic tradeoffs related to role of freshwater flows (and upstream water consumption) on fishing communities in the Gulf of California (at bottom of Colorado River system)
Public agencies and NGOs interested in cost-effectively acquiring water for environmental needs have better understanding of how to structure contracts with agricultural participants and how to measure and monitor water "savings" produced by participants.
A model that estimates the value of adaptation in desert and southern California agricultural regions. Simulating response of various farm types to cuts in water supply and increased temperature. Validating model outcomes with actual observations. The study is funded by a grant ($27,000) from the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics.
As a result of active dissemination of W2190 research findings at stakeholder group meetings, public agency and private industry stakeholders will have concrete empirical evidence for how changes in water levels, wildfires, and other factors affect the volume of whitewater rafting, as well as recommendations for how to mitigate adverse impacts induced by drought and wildfire.
Benefits estimation practitioners and policymakers will have a new approach for better reflecting lower-income citizens? values for water quality. This will result in benefit-cost estimates that increase the likelihood that less wealthy citizens and communities have more equitable access to the provision of public goods such as natural resource restoration and water quality improvement.
Identifying an Ag. Census/FRIS data set for Native American Indian irrigated farms was completed at a multi-state regional level (for three U.S. regions) (not possible at a reservation-by-reservation level). Analysis of data is ongoing and will be supplemented with new analysis using the 2012/2013 Ag. Census and FRIS data when the 2013 FRIS becomes available in early 2015.
California agricultural drought impacts are significant. For a summary of these impacts, seehttp://ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/california-drought-2014-farm-and-foodimpacts.aspx#.VEQi0fnF98E .Nine extension presentations were given this year were given by research at U. Idaho regarding the economic impact of water calls and water policy. The audience for these presentations were the state legislature, governors office, and water policy makers. In addition, six presentations were given related to water policy.
The book from the special issue of the JNRPR was printed in the fall of 2014. It will further expand the audience of W2190 research, as the book will be held in many academic libraries and will be widely available to policy professionals, students, and researchers from various disciplines.
The groundwater climate model developed by Peterson captures the effects of climate change on common pool externalities. To the extent that declining precipitation exacerbates the common pool externality problem, models that ignore climate change patterns are likely to underestimate the potential welfare gains of water conservation policies.
Knowledge of factors affecting adoption of drought tolerant plants in a region that has not typically experienced drought will enable the development of education and extension programming that is regionally relevant.
Demonstrated financial feasibility of wastewater recycling in the Bakken oil producing region of western North Dakota.
K. Schoengold and C. Shaneyfelt find that disaggregate climate and soil data improve the estimation of historical groundwater withdrawals. Predictions based on climate change models show that average water use will increase in the absence of policy-defined limits.
K. Schoengold, Y. Ding, and R. Headlee find that payments from drought risk management policies are a substitute for some on-farm practices (conservation tillage) and a complement to other practices (no-till). The net effect is an increase in conservation due to insurance indemnities and a decrease due to ad-hoc disaster payments.
K. Schoengold and D. Sunding found that fixed price input contracts are expected to increase the use of precision technology. This shows that using fixed prices instead of increased rates may provide the same conservation benefits.
Peck (UW) mentored a masters student who developed a simulation model of flood risk in Malang City, Indonesia. Flood managers in Indonesia can use the model to explore the expected economic benefits and costs of alternative flood prevention techniques, such as detention ponds, retention ponds, and afforestation.
K. Kovacs (PI), Q. Huang, E. Wailes, C. Henry. ?Economics of Multiple Water-Saving Technologies across the Arkansas Delta Region?, Soybean Promotion Board, $47,000.
K. Kovacs (PI), Q. Huang (PI), E. Wailes, C. Henry. ?Economics of Multiple Water-Saving Technologies across the Arkansas Delta Region?, Arkansas Water Resources Center, $24,600.
Large regional water management agencies, such as the Central Arizona Project, have an improved base of economic information for designing and implementing programs to improve their water supply reliability through contracts with irrigated agriculture.
New water banking initiatives are underway in several western states, and state legislatures and water management agencies have invited testimony and workshops focused upon the economic implications of water banking in their state.
New online water trading initiatives are underway in several western states, with access to economic information about such programs elsewhere and the effects of online trading on public agency and participant transaction costs related to water trading.
Work in the experimental lab by A. Dinar and a colleague on CPR (GW) management under uncertainty and with provision of public good investments. Final results provide information on behavior of users under various climatic situations.
Working on a theoretical and policy aspects of water trade in California. Impediments to trade are legal rules that are set by the counties to prevent transfer of water outside the county. A panel dataset amended by legal programs in 58 counties suggest the loss in value from WM. Impact include estimate of the cost of legal impediments and how it can be addressed.
Goemans, Suter, and Manning at CSU in collaboration with the Water Preservation Partnership will study the economic impacts of policies aimed at reducing groundwater use in the Republican River Basin of Colorado. The research will identify farm and regional level policy outcomes. Source: Statewide Water Supply Res. Acct. and S. Platte Basin Acct. Amount: $159,882 Term: 1/15 - 12/16.
The OSTP Water Use Initiative has put forward a budget initiative to reconstitute Irrigation District and Drainage District water use surveys to improve data sets used to assess future federal/state water-energy-food nexus policy issues, particularly under expected climate-change impacts.
A completed 2013 FRIS report, published by USDA?s NASS, is expected by mid-to-late November, 2014. Summary tables will integrate previous FRIS information on crop irrigation and water use with horticulture sector irrigation and water use.
ERS Agricultural Normalized Price Estimates are used by Federal agencies to evaluate benefits of projects affecting agriculture. They are used by the USACE, U.S BoR, USDA?s NRCS, and the TVA.
Improved groundwater management strategies and institutions will help producers to manage production risks from drought better while sustaining water levels in aquifers.
?An Integrative Decision Support System for Managing Water Resources under Increased Climate Variability.? The US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). September 2013 - October 2016. Jon Bartholic and others ($640,000.00).
"The Potential for Incorporating Economics into Great Lakes Tributary Model Decision Support Tools (Workshop/Research).? U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. September 2013 - October 2014. Jon Bartholic, Frank Lupi, Saichon Seedang ($29,073.00).
Locating and Targeting High-Impact Farm Fields to Reduce Phosphorus Discharges." Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. October 2012 - September 2014. Jon Bartholic and others ($189,377.00).
Policy makers need to understand existing water institutions and barriers to the design and implementation of alternative institutions to address changing water availability due to climate change in order to develop feasible solutions.
K. Schoengold and D. Zilberman find that tiered pricing can jointly improve economic efficiency and equity but that the feasibility depends on exogenous characteristics of the water utility and the customer distribution.
Results of some of the detailed spatial models used in groundwater management were shared with Kansas Water Office to demonstrate the effect of various policies on Groundwater Management Area 4 in the Ogallala Aquifer in Kansas.
Graduate and underground students and research scientists were trained in soil and water salinity measurement and management techniques and in integrated resource management economic analysis methods as well as providing students and research scientists opportunities to give presentations and interact at professional meetings.
Developing opportunities for cities, Irrigation Districts and/or the Rio Grande Authority to partner with irrigation farmers for implementing water conservation practices.
Hansen received an NRCS-Wyoming Competitive Innovation Grant to help implement a market-based conservation exchange in Wyoming. (2014-2016) $150,000. This work is joint with Sublette County Conservation District, The Nature Conservancy, and Environmental Defense Fund. This work is of interest to landowners, energy companies, and state-level policymakers.
Hansen and UW hydrologist Ginger Paige received funding from the Walton Foundation (through the University of Wyoming Institute of Environment and Natural Resources) to quantify the non-agricultural value of flood irrigation in southwestern Wyoming. (2014-2015) $27,000. This work will be of interest to landowners and policymakers in SW Wyoming and elsewhere in the CO Basin.