County-level agricultural water productivity assessment

Knowledge graph centered on County-level agricultural water productivity assessment with 64 nodes and 125 connections. Top connected: climate change, evapotranspiration, streamflow, Colorado River, Gunnison County.

Method synopsis

A comprehensive method for calculating multiple water productivity measures at the county scale using crop marketing revenues, production costs, and consumptive water use data to assess economic returns per unit of irrigation water consumed.

Synthesized from method descriptions across 1 paper using this protocol.

Procedure as described in the canonical source

Steps below were extracted from the paper that introduces this protocol — Agricultural Water Footprints and Productivity in the Colorado River Basin (2023), Hydrology. Implementations in other papers (listed below) may differ.

1. Identify study counties
   Selected 18 Colorado River Basin counties across seven states, excluding counties with less than 90% irrigated acreage in the Rio Grande Basin, counties dominated by dryland farming, and counties lacking irrigation data
   Quantities: 18 counties selected from Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and WyomingDuration: Not specifiedConditions: Counties must have sufficient irrigated agriculture and available data
   Equipment: Geographic analysis tools
2. Obtain crop marketing data
   County-level data for crop revenues for 2015 obtained from the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Economic Accounts
   Quantities: Data for all selected counties for year 2015Duration: Annual data collectionConditions: 2015 data used to match USGS irrigation survey timing
   Equipment: BEA database access
3. Obtain water consumption data
   County-level consumptive use of water for irrigation from USGS 2015 national survey, with consumptive use defined as water originally withdrawn from a source that is subsequently removed from availability owing to evaporation, transpiration, or incorporation into crops
   Quantities: County-level water consumption in acre-feet for 2015

Typical Equipment

• BEA database access
• USGS Water-use data access
• USDA survey data access
• Statistical software

Output Measurements

• economic water productivity (gross returns)
• economic water productivity (net returns)
• blue water footprint
• cash rent premiums

Papers Using This Protocol (1)

Places Where Used