Estimation of potential for management-based practices to meet IID on-farm water conservation goals
Date
2009-06
Authors
Clark, Byron, author
Hall, Lindsay, author
Eckhardt, John R., author
Davids, Grant G., author
U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
The Imperial Irrigation District of Southern California (IID) is embarking on an ambitious program to conserve 303,000 acre-feet per year for transfer to other Colorado River water users in California. Conservation will be achieved through a combination of system and on-farm improvements. On-farm conservation of approximately 200,000 acre-feet of water per year will be achieved through a voluntary program in which participants have the option to choose which conservation measures to implement on individual fields based on incentive offerings. In 2007, IID completed the Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan (Definite Plan), which identifies likely components of the on-farm program, including expected on-farm conservation measure implementation by participants for varying incentive offerings. Expected increases in irrigation performance, reductions in farm deliveries, and corresponding implementation costs were estimated for each field for each season and compatible conservation measure. Estimation of delivery changes was accomplished by modeling performance increases as a function of the crop, soil, and irrigation method at the field; the conservation measure selected; and the historical irrigation performance of the field. The model was developed, in part, based on simulations of surface irrigation performance across a range of inflow rates and cutoff times for historical irrigation events monitored by IID. This paper provides a brief background and overview of the on-farm component of the Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan, describes the evaluation of management-based conservation measures such as irrigation scheduling, and compares conservation estimates for management-based conservation measures to other conservation measures evaluated as part of the Definite Plan.
Description
Presented at Irrigation district sustainability - strategies to meet the challenges: USCID irrigation district specialty conference held on June 3-6, 2009 in Reno, Nevada.