**CSREES AGRICULTURAL WATER SECURITY**

**WHITE PAPER**

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height="2.1131944444444444in"}

**Prepared by**

**Michael P. O'Neill and James P. Dobrowolski**

**Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service**

**Washington, DC 20250**

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# Send comments on this document to Dr. Michael P. O'Neill, National Program Leader for Water Resources at water@csrees.usda.gov. 

# Executive Summary

*Agricultural water security* will move us towards the realization of a
***sustainable water use scenario***--- by maximizing the efficiency of
water use by farmers, ranchers, rural and urbanizing communities, thus
ensuring water volumes allocated for per capita domestic water
consumption, ecosystem services, recreation and aesthetics while meeting
the needs of food and fiber production. This paper describes an
Agricultural Water Security Initiative to create and enhance research,
education, and extension programs funded by the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). The Initiative puts
into action bold steps identified at the USDA Research, Education, and
Economics mission area listening session on agricultural water security.
Three promising areas for CSREES research, education and extension
programs are:

-   Exploring new technologies for the use of recycled water and water
    conservation in agricultural, rural, and urbanizing watersheds;

-   Probing the human, social, and economic dimensions of agricultural
    water security with a focus on adoption-outreach; and

-   Researching biotechnological improvements in water use efficiency of
    crop and horticultural plants to yield greater "crop per drop."

    We explore opportunities for new partnerships with other federal
    agencies, private and non-profit groups in this Initiative and
    strengthen the partnership between USDA-CSREES and the land grant
    universities.

# Overview

For years, finding enough water for people meant finding more water to
use. Today, and into the future, we need to find ways to use water in a
more sustainable manner through a paradigm shift that stresses increased
water use efficiency across all sectors. Agriculture, as the single
greatest water consumer in the world and controlling the greatest
volumes in the United States, has a unique, mandated responsibility to
manage in a sustainable manner national and global water resources. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is positioned to provide
leadership (USDA, 2002) ..."on food, agriculture, natural resources, and
related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science,
and efficient management."

In September 2004, the USDA Research, Education, and Economics (REE)
mission area hosted a listening session aimed at identifying strengths,
knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities for a USDA response to
agricultural water security (Dobrowolski and O'Neill, 2005).
Participants in this listening session identified bold steps for USDA to
take that would help achieve a sustainable water scenario through the
year 2025. Participants in the listening session also identified
appropriate federal, state, and local partners that must be engaged in
these bold steps to insure success.

USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
(CSREES), the Federal partner with land grant universities nationwide,
is uniquely positioned to establish a new *Agricultural Water Security
(AWS) Initiative* supporting and coordinating research, education, and
extension programs across the country to avoid crisis and conflict over
water. This Initiative would bring together cutting edge research and
innovative education and outreach to focus on critical gaps in
addressing water supply, availability, and distribution issues. These
gaps involve irrigation efficiency and management linked to water
marketing, drought preparedness, rural/urban water reuse technologies
and adoption, extending agricultural water conservation strategies to
the urban sector, and developing water-relevant biotechnologies
(Dobrowolski and O'Neill, 2005). Immediate action could be taken through
the Cooperative Extension System (CES), reaching across the country with
county-based programs that promote behavioral change at the individual
and community level, supported by applied research from the Land Grant
University System to champion greater water use efficiencies. The AWS
Initiative would use a holistic, watershed/aquifer-based approach to
issues in water supply, allocation, and distribution taking advantage of
CSREES' unique relationship with the existing infrastructure of the
university system and the diversity of its research, education and
extension missions.

The following concepts define the proposed Agricultural Water Security
(AWS) Initiative:

-   We need to better understand the future of irrigated agriculture in
    the Nation, including alternatives to irrigated agriculture for a
    safe, dependable food supply and determining how future climate
    change and population growth scenarios could affect water supplies
    and water demands. How will our Nation's agricultural industry
    respond to increasing competition from other countries?

-   We need to develop new science and technology focused on widening
    the array of choices for conserving water. This new science should
    evaluate how knowledge, incentives, and policies help to promote
    appropriate decision-making. Ultimately, we need to find ways to
    help agricultural water districts identify and cope with change such
    as urbanization and competition for water.

-   We need to extend and expand current paradigms for water education
    and extension/outreach. How can education play a role to cultivate
    effective water management and water policy from the individual to
    the community and the global level? This new paradigm should explore
    new strategies to understand behavioral change and how social and
    economic factors affect decision-making for water resources
    management.

## Do we have an agricultural water security problem?

Water is critical to maintaining human health and well-being, protecting
and sustaining sensitive ecosystems, producing food and fiber into the
future, enhancing recreation and aesthetics, and providing for the
long-term security of people and nations. Providing enough water to meet
human demands across the nation is challenging water policy makers---due
primarily to water being viewed as a human entitlement, delivered below
cost and used inefficiently. Of the 147 countries ranked for water
efficiency by the World Water Council, the United States ranked last
where inefficiencies at times reach 50% (NCSE, 2004).

Globally, farmers are irrigating five times more land than at the
beginning of the 20^th^ century. Withdrawals for agriculture doubled and
domestic and industrial uses quadrupled between 1950 and 1995. In the
U.S., growing populations and changing values have increased demands on
water supplies and watersheds, resulting in water use and management
conflicts, particularly in the western U.S. where populations are
expected to increase 30% in the next 25 years. Across the country,
agricultural needs are often in direct conflict with urban needs and
with demands to sustain or improve ecosystem services, recreation, and
tourism. Water issues being debated include enhancing supplies with new
storage facilities, expanding existing infrastructure, funding for water
reclamation and reuse, and lowering water consumption. The U.S.
Department of Interior (DOI) responded to this changing global scenario
by introducing *Water 2025*, an initiative led by the Bureau of
Reclamation (BOR), aimed at avoiding conflict arising from water crises
in the western United States through improved technology and management
of water resources (www.doi.gov/**water2025**/). Congress considered
water resources management important enough to deliberate title transfer
and wastewater reclamation and reuse bills, Indian water rights
settlement bills, and the reauthorization of large-scale watershed
management and restoration programs -- all with program elements
inexorably linked to agriculture and USDA --- during the 108^th^
Congress (Cody and Sheikh, 2005). The 109^th^ Congress is likely to
consider and reconsider issues surrounding water resources management
spanning the transfer of title of federal storage and conveyance
facilities to project users, water project authorizations, agency policy
changes dealing with oversight and sustainability (e.g., Klamath Basin,
Salton Sea), broader evaluations of federal water activities that
include research and development, education, and the establishment of a
national water policy commission. USDA-CSREES will be prepared to work
with partner agencies and institutions to help address these
congressional needs through implementation of the AWS Initiative.

Meeting the basic needs of humans and the environment will require
fundamental changes in the approach to water management and use. Three
scenarios for the future of agricultural water security are envisioned
-- a "business as usual" scenario, a "water crisis" scenario, and a
"sustainable water use" scenario (Rosegrant et al., 2002).

***Business as usual*** trends to 2025 in water resource management,
policy and investment suggest declining outlays for expanding surface
water irrigation systems and reservoir storage in the face of greater
demands for food and fiber crops, thereby promoting increased import
requirements. Without sufficient surface sources, farmers will depend
more on frequently overused aquifers. Greater consumption of water for
non-irrigation uses (+62%), especially domestic uses (+70%), to 2025 by
developing countries will increase water scarcity and conflict. By
contrast, developed countries through initiatives like Agricultural
Water Security could experience lower per capita domestic water use
where the highest per capita consumption takes place.

Under a ***water crisis scenario***---persistent drought, continued
global climate change, rapid demand changes, moderate worsening of water
policy and investment---governments further cut water infrastructure
investments, transferring irrigation systems to users without necessary
reforms in water rights. Failing public infrastructure forces irrigation
prices to rise with falling water use efficiency. Irrigators fight price
increases resulting in conflict at the local level and failed management
at the watershed level. Water reserved for ecosystem services will be
the subject of unregulated and illegal withdrawals. Key aquifers will
fail due to unsustainable extraction leading to widespread farm failure.
Growing urban centers will demand greater water volumes from newly
privatized water and sanitation firms who will cater to people who can
pay---while per capita consumption drops as accessibility tightens.

Securing adequate water supplies to meet the food and fiber needs of an
expanding population and maximizing the efficiency of water use by
farmers, ranchers, and rural and urbanizing communities is the goal of
CSREES's *Agricultural Water Security Initiative*. This Initiative will
move us towards the realization of a ***sustainable water use
scenario***---greater water volumes available for domestic water
consumption and ecosystem services while maintaining food and fiber
production at "business as usual" levels. Sustainable water use would
achieve greater social equity and environmental protection by careful
reform in water management through sound government and private sector
action.

Agricultural Water Security needs to address national issues in an
integrated manner with a focus on programs rather than projects, solving
problems at multiple scales. Research, education, and outreach needs to
be coordinated across government with the resulting knowledge and
technologies focused on assisting water managers and water policy
decision makers (Engberg, 2005).

Considerable scientific information exists regarding the efficient use
of water for agricultural irrigation. Similarly, much is known about the
impacts of drought on plant growth and productivity (see Clemmens and
Allen, 2005). However, there is a need to expand the knowledge base of
Agricultural Water Security through research, education, and outreach
programs aimed at (see Dobrowolski and O'Neill, 2005):

-   Risk assessment associated with drought and water shortage and links
    to global change.

-   Risk management for farmers, ranchers, rural residents, and
    urbanizing communities facing impacts of drought and water scarcity.

-   Sociological and economic impacts linked to the adoption and
    acceptance of water supply and conservation technology.

-   Better indicators and methodologies to assess the value of
    environmental services, value and costs of environmental
    degradation, and impacts of water and crop subsidies.

-   Better quantification of the environmental water needs to achieve
    sustainable ecosystem services, and recognition of expanding water
    needs for recreational uses.

-   The role of physical and paper water banks, progressive rate
    structures and other market-based or incentive mechanisms;
    quantifying the full cost of providing water to different use and
    quality classes.

-   Development of drought tolerant, poor soil and water quality
    tolerant plant species for agriculture and rural and urban
    landscaping.

-   Impacts of water conservation and reuse on downstream water supplies
    -- addressing upstream efficiency and the potential for decreased
    downstream supply. What are the public health and environmental
    concerns of reused water? How can agriculture treat or improve
    return flows?

-   Databases that are composed of spatial water resource data used for
    agriculture to assess current demands and use and predicting areas
    of concern and water resource data that affects the maintenance and
    improvement of ecosystem services.

-   Tools for integrated decision making including forecasting supply
    and shortage.

# Current activities in CSREES

The role of CSREES within the REE mission area of USDA is to provide
federal assistance for research, education, and extension/outreach in
support of five strategic goals. Providing leadership to the AWS
Initiative is appropriate for CSREES because it fills a distinctive
niche among federal agencies and it is uniquely positioned to mobilize
the capacity of the land grant university system and other research and
education organizations across the nation.

Land grant universities have a long history of research, education, and
extension efforts aimed at water resources management supported in part
through formula funding provided by the Smith-Lever and the Hatch Act.
These projects, including the multi-state projects funded through the
Hatch Act, have focused on water availability, water management and
economics, as well as plant responses to environmental stresses such as
drought.

CSREES also has administered a number of competitive grants programs in
the National Research Initiative (NRI), the Small Business Innovation
Research program, and the National Integrated Water Quality Program
(NIWQP) that address AWS issues. The NRI Watershed Processes and Water
Resources Program has focused mostly on water quality issues but also
has addressed hydrology of agricultural and rural watersheds. Plant
stresses caused by drought, salinity, and flooding are priority areas
for the NRI Agricultural Plants and Environmental Adaptation Program.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program successfully
promotes technology development that leads to water conservation. Much
of the focus of SBIR's efforts has dealt with development of irrigation
technologies for agricultural water conservation. Since 2000, the NIWQP
has addressed water resource issues in agricultural, rural, and
urbanizing watersheds. However, in FY 2005 the NIWQP emphasized
*measurable behavior change* to reflect the greater emphasis on actual
adoption of new technologies and stakeholder behavioral change. This
reflects a major shift in emphasis that challenged the research and
education community to explore social and economic factors that impact
water quality and quantity management decisions. Measurable behavior
change requires the design and testing of tools to assess changes in the
adoption of new water-saving technologies and water consumption. These
new outreach efforts should make use of new information delivery
mechanisms such as those developed through eXtension
(http://intranet.extension.org).

## How do we move AWS ahead with our federal partners?

It is imperative that CSREES design strategies with appropriate outcomes
and assessments that dovetail with the Administration's national
research and development priorities and reflect the specific mission of
USDA and CSREES. Marburger and Bolten (2005, p.5) clearly state the
federal research and development priorities:

> "The ability to measure, monitor, and forecast U.S. and global
> supplies of fresh water is important because agencies are developing a
> coordinated multi-year plan through NSTC to improve research to
> understand the processes that control water availability and quality,
> and to collect and make available the data needed to ensure adequate
> water supply for the future."

### Ongoing efforts within USDA

Coordination of water resources research and education takes place
through three existing activities within USDA -- the USDA Working Group
on Water Resources, the USDA Drought Coordinating Committee and USDA
Drought Team, and the Partnership Management Team (Phills, 2005). These
three forums bring together agencies from across all USDA mission areas
and create opportunities for USDA to establish or strengthen
partnerships focused on water resources issues (Figure 1). The primary
USDA agencies involved in these activities are:

-   Agricultural Research Service (ARS),

-   Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service
    (CSREES),

-   Economic Research Service (ERS),

-   National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS),

-   Risk Management Agency (RMA),

-   U.S. Forest Service (USFS),

-   Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS),

-   Farm Services Agency (FSA), and

-   Rural Utilities Service (RUS).

We present three existing and potential partnerships that exemplify
opportunities for coordination within USDA. The three examples include
an ongoing partnership among NRCS, ARS, and CSREES on the Conservation
Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) and potential partnerships between
CSREES and USFS, and between CSREES and RMA.

The CEAP partnership was initiated in 2003 in response to calls for
improved accountability for conservation programs within USDA. ARS and
CSREES joined NRCS in an effort to provide research-based information on
the effects of conservation practices on water quality at the watershed
scale. CSREES' unique contribution was to include evaluation of economic
and social considerations in management decisions and how these
considerations ultimately impacted water quality. CSREES also required
projects to include an outreach-education component where farmers and
ranchers received knowledge on the effects of conservation practices in
their watershed. There is a clear opportunity to expand the existing
CSREES-NRCS partnership on CEAP to address issues related to the AWS
initiative.

Since the late 1990's, the USFS has dealt with educational/behavioral
change and conflict resolution issues associated with water use on
federal lands (Hodgson 1991, Rey, 2005). With an extensive network of
social scientists and economists across the U.S., a partnership
involving CSREES and USFS could provide needed assistance with the
evaluation of adoption-outreach and behavior change focused on all
aspects of water availability. This area offers a promising opportunity
for CSREES to establish a joint research, education, and
extension/outreach program focused on social and behavioral issues
associated with water resources management involving CSREES and the
USFS.

Payments from the USDA RMA to agricultural producers affected by drought
have reached record amounts in the last decade. An opportunity exists
for CSREES to partner with RMA to improve our understanding of
agricultural risk associated with drought and to develop cost effective
strategies to assist farmers and ranchers dealing with drought. It is
possible that a joint competitive grants program could be established
between CSREES and RMA focused on improving the characterization of risk
and development of improved risk-based tools to address drought.

**Ongoing efforts with other federal agencies**

Federal water agencies across government are on notice to improve the
water resources research enterprise, to minimize duplication, to provide
a sound basis for decisions about the allocation of funds and scope of
research, to provide a coherent strategy to Congress and the people of
the United States for federal investment, and to insure that
large-scale, multi-agency efforts are advanced to solve impending water
issues (NRC, 2004; NSTC, 2004). CSREES, in cooperation with federal
partners, should focus research, education, and technology on needed
improvements toward a goal of a safe and sustainable water supply in the
United States to meet human and ecosystem demands. Our partners across
government (Table 1) are best represented by the Subcommittee on Water
Availability and Quality (SWAQ) of the Committee on the Environment and
Natural Resources (CENR) of the National Science and Technology Council
(NSTC). SWAQ was established in 2002 to advise and assist the CENR and
NSTC on policies, procedures, plans, issues, scientific developments,
and research needs related to the availability and quality of water
resources in the United States.

At the federal level, CSREES coordinates research and education programs
with other federal agencies through the CENR SWAQ. As part of its
mission, this committee provides a forum for coordination of research
and education programs that span more than 15 federal agencies. This
subcommittee recently completed a publication focused on water
availability in the United States (NSTC, 2004).

The AWS Initiative provides an excellent opportunity for CSREES and the
land grant partnership to engage BOR with Water 2025 and other federal
agencies in meeting the nation's water resources challenges. CSREES is
strategically positioned to work with land grant universities to address
social, economic, and behavioral issues of agricultural water security.
These social and economic questions are at the core of decision-making,
and understanding these issues ultimately may lead to greater water use
efficiency in agricultural, rural, and urbanizing watersheds. CSREES
could explore opportunities to partner with BOR to create a joint
competitive grant program aimed at providing research and education
activities needed to fully realize the potential of Water 2025.

## How do we involve non-federal partners? 

CSREES must include other partners such as river basin commissions and
national and state level non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with
water as a focus, for example: Water Environment Research Foundation
(WERF), Water Education Foundations, WateReuse Foundation, American
Water Works Association (AWWA), American Water Resources Association
(AWRA), American Geophysical Union (AGU), The Nature Conservancy (TNC),
National Institutes of Water Resources (NIWR), Universities Council on
Water Resources (UCOWR), and others. These groups have extensive
histories of working on water resource issues and also providing
educational materials to a wide array of audiences. CSREES through the
106 land grant universities can engage these other organizations to
achieve key objectives of the AWS Initiative. Opportunities should
include jointly sponsored workshops, targeted symposia at national
meetings, and coordination of educational materials for water resource
management.

# The CSREES AWS strategy

Meeting our water availability challenges through 2025 and beyond
compels us to develop bold steps to redirect our current, mission-driven
agendas. Six themes for research, education, and extension activities
were identified at the REE listening session (Dobrowolski and O'Neill
2005). The six themes are: Irrigation Efficiency and Management; Drought
Risk Assessment and Preparedness; General Water Conservation and
Management; Rural/Urban Water Reuse; Water Marketing, Distribution and
Allocation; and Biotechnology. From this list of six themes, ARS is
committed to continuing support for irrigation technology. The National
Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
has a continuing mission to develop tools and provide education for
drought preparedness. Finally, there is a broad interagency effort
(SWAQ) to improve water conservation at the watershed scale.

CSREES should focus on the three remaining themes that appear to offer
the greatest promise for near-term gains in agricultural water security:

-   Exploring new technologies and systems for the use of recycled/reuse
    water in agricultural, rural, and urbanizing watersheds,

-   Probing the human, social, and economic dimensions of agricultural
    water security (including water markets) with a focus on
    adoption-outreach and behavioral change, and

-   Discovering biotechnological improvements in water use efficiency of
    crop and horticultural plants to achieve greater "crop per drop."

These three themes from the participant-led AWS listening session fit
within the research and education challenges (water availability,
quantity and quality; water use; and water institutions) described by
the National Research Council (2001, 2004) and supported by the
Administration (OSTP 2004).

Figure 2 is a flow diagram which illustrates the sustainable water use
scenario by depicting positive flows (research, education, and program
and policy development) against negative flows (the status quo and
limited resources) for an AWS Initiative.

## Promising areas of research, education, and extension

The three promising areas of research, education, and extension/outreach
for CSREES are outlined here and key questions are identified. We
anticipate that additional questions will be developed as these areas
are further developed.

1.  Expand the NRI program for Agricultural Plants and Environmental
    Adaptation to conduct basic research to improve biotechnological
    tools that alter the metabolism of plants to adapt to water stress
    (including drought, salt, and flooding stress). The success of this
    research will depend in part upon the public perception of
    transgenic organisms and genetic engineering. Along with research,
    appropriate outreach and education efforts are needed to bring
    together scientific advances and public acceptance. Important
    research, education, and extension questions are:

    -   Can germplasm collection of tolerant genotypes be used as a
        source of new genes for agricultural and landscaping plants?

    -   Can these tolerant genotypes be developed by genetic engineering
        or other techniques?

    -   Can novel molecular and biotechnological methodologies be
        developed to identify and characterize stress-related genes to
        use as probes for selection of tolerant genotypes and for
        generation of transgenic plants?

    -   What functional genomic studies are needed to analyze function
        and interaction of genes important for tolerance to
        environmental stresses?

    -   What tools and strategies are needed to insure that public
        perception of transgenic plants is based upon scientific
        knowledge? How do we promote appropriate use of transgenic
        organisms and genetic engineering for the public good?

    -   How can training in plant breeding and germplasm enhancement be
        improved or expanded to insure a future generation of plant
        breeders?

Potential federal partners for this activity include ARS and the
National Science Foundation (NSF). Coordination of research, education,
and extension agendas will be critical to insure that the maximum
benefit is gained from this program.

2.  Create an Integrated Program for AWS that addresses water reuse,
    conservation and wastewater reuse for agricultural, rural, and
    urbanizing watersheds. Water reuse is a rapidly evolving
    water-management tool for supplementing limited water resources
    around the globe. Research and education/outreach are important to
    foster the development of criteria and standards for economical and
    sustainable solutions that will help protect public health and the
    environment. Research is needed into new and emerging treatment and
    reuse technologies, such as membrane bioreactors. Further research
    needs to be done on the socioeconomic impacts of reuse projects --
    considering the tangible and intangible economic return to offset
    the elevated capital and operating costs. Key questions include:

    -   How do we evaluate and improve risk assessment and risk
        management approaches for wastewater irrigation in terms of
        public health and pollution?

    -   What strategies or tools can be developed for effective
        education and outreach related to water and wastewater reuse for
        producers, for decision-makers, and for the public?

    -   How can the risks and benefits of nutrients and contaminants
        from wastewater be assessed and managed? What risks and benefits
        exist for soil quality?

    -   What sustainable practices are being used that can be
        transferred to benefit other rural areas in the U.S. and in
        other countries?

    -   From a public health perspective, which crops are the best
        candidates for wastewater irrigation and which should be
        avoided?

Several key federal partners could be engaged in this effort including
ARS, BOR, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) and U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Wastewater Management and Office of
Water, especially when considering investment in urban/rural water reuse
and associated educational activities (U.S. EPA 1991, 1992).

3.  Develop an extension-led integrated program for
    "*adoption-outreach*" of water technologies -- achieving true
    behavioral change among farmers, ranchers, and citizens where the
    full value of water is appreciated, and the risks to water supplies
    from mismanagement, population growth and changing weather patterns
    are understood. There are often large discrepancies between the
    risks experts worry about (e.g., a global water crisis) and those
    that lay people are most concerned about. The perception of a given
    risk is amplified by what psychologists call \"outrage factors,\"
    which can make people feel that even small risks are unacceptable
    (Hallman et al. 1995). Bringing USDA technology and know-how into
    the urban, urbanizing, and rural residential environment will
    require a new paradigm for Cooperative Extension professionals
    similar to the model implemented by food science researchers and
    extension educators to counteract obesity. Results should help to
    provide water managers and policy makers with options and tools that
    lead to behavioral change and a reduction in social conflict.
    Important research, education, and extension questions include:

    -   How do we design tools to evaluate adoption-outreach outcomes or
        performance-based measures of outcome?

    -   What applied research or technology is needed to overcome
        knowledge gaps that constrain adoption-outreach of water
        conservation and reuse?

    -   What are the socio-economic drivers of behavior change? How do
        we best evaluate the linearity and non-linearity of science and
        social feedback loops related to behavior change?

    -   How do we overcome the mismatches that exist between actual and
        perceived risk of water availability or water-borne hazards?

Potential federal partners for outreach-adoption include USFS Research,
ERS, EPA, and the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE).

Key to implementation of the USDA CSREES AWS Initiative is a need to
strengthen socio-economic dimensions of water reuse and
adoption-outreach across the agency. CSREES must engage a National
Program Leader (NPL) in the human dimensions of natural resources and
environmental management. This NPL should specialize in understanding
divergent societal values, economic forces, changing demographics, and
resource sustainability that increase the number and complexity of
natural resource management conflicts. USDA and CSREES need greater
knowledge of attitudes, motivations and values that motivate individuals
and communities to conserve natural resources. Significant progress on
the pathway to sustainability is dependent on understanding human
motivations, values and behaviors in relation to natural resources
management, especially water.  Existing programs (formula and
competitive) would be enhanced through the inclusion of socio-economic
sciences, and a new competitive program could serve a variety of natural
resource management challenges. The narrow and incomplete economic
valuations and forecasts we currently use are inadequate for making
sound management decisions.  Often management decisions are based on
cost-benefit analyses that undervalue our natural resources (Young,
2005).  We are in the very early stages of being able to value water and
other natural resources in a comprehensive manner that includes
ecosystem services and recreational values.  We need to improve our
valuation capability -- focusing solely on the economics of commercial
activities ignores the full value of natural resources and ecosystem
services they provide to society. 

## How can we evaluate the impact of AWS?

Agricultural water security is an integral part of Goal 5 -- "*Protect
and Enhance the Nation's Natural Resource Base and Environment" --* in
the USDA Strategic Plan. Impacts of water use efficiency, expanded water
availability, and healthier aquatic and estuarine ecosystems are part of
the current and future accountability measures associated with this
goal.

Crop technologies that reduce the need for irrigated agriculture in arid
environments, provide greater agricultural production under poor soil
and water quality regimes, and concomitantly provide for expanded
economic growth are indicators of success. Increasing available water
for sustaining natural ecosystems would signal sustainability in water
use -- greater irrigation return flows surveyed by NASS, could be used
as a surrogate for such a measure of sustainability.

An improvement in knowledge, attitudes and behavior relative to water
use conservation and water reuse would also mark positive progress.
Therefore, measures of adoption of conservation and water reuse
practices can demonstrate progress in relation to agricultural water
security.

At the individual level, success measures might include per capita water
use estimates for various states, regions, and the nation. Increases in
the volume of reuse water delivered to the household and farm level is
an indicator of success. CSREES could monitor the development, marketing
and application of reuse technologies by evaluating changes in the
market share of raw water and treated water technologies. At the
community level, measures of success might include the increase in
population served by a surface or ground water supply, community
sustainability, or the value of water "saved" through various
conservation measures.

Changes in community involvement in water quality and quantity related
issues and changes in public policies that impact opportunity for
healthier and sustainable water supplies would also indicate positive
progress. Data from national surveys, the water quality evaluation and
reporting system, CSREES supported evaluation studies, and feedback from
CSREES supported state Cooperative Extension programs can be used to
identify the most successful strategies for addressing/averting the next
water crisis.

# References

Clemmens, A. and R. Allen, 2005. Impact of agricultural water
conservation on water availability, Proceedings of the World Water and
Environmental Resources Congress, p. 535.

Cody, B.A. and P.A. Sheikh. 2005. Western water resource issues.
Congress. Res. Serv. Issue Brief 1B10019. 12 p.

Dobrowolski, J.P. and M.P. O'Neill (eds.). 2005. Agricultural water
security listening session final report. USDA REE, Washington DC. 52 p.

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