What is GA-FIT? What is Drought SWAP? What are you trying to accomplish?
The Georgia Flow Incentive Trust (GA-FIT) is a project designed to develop and implement innovative drought response tools to protect Georgia’s streams while also protecting the economic well-being of Southwest Georgia farmers. The project is capitalizing on recent data and research to design a more targeted, quantified, and effective approach to agricultural water management during drought. GA-FIT was launched in 2022 with an initial focus on incentives for voluntary irrigation suspension in the Ichawaynochaway Creek Basin. In 2022, an American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) grant funded an expansion of GA-FIT to include several new drought management tools for the Lower Flint River Basin. A big piece of this grant is funding for the development of alternatives to surface water supplies for farmers during drought -- the new Drought Source Water Alternatives Program (Drought SWAP). During drought, surface water use has a direct impact on instream flows, and low flows create adverse conditions for natural aquatic communities and downstream water users. This new program will install deep groundwater wells that farmers can use as an alternative water supply source during drought.   The ARPA grant is also funding several other data collection, monitoring and policy development programs that will greatly improve drought resilience in the region.