Now the focus has shifted to management of resources for preservation of quality of water and land. Various incentives and regulations are reinforcing this change in Oregon. The management strategies for protection of water quality through efficient irrigation include timing and rate of application of chemicals, more efficient irrigation methods and application techniques, and reuse of irrigation water. Groundwater containing nitrate is being reused for irrigation, and has value as both fertilizer and water. Conservation is seen as the key to efficient water use.
Conservation makes water available for other beneficial uses.
While simple in concept, application of conservation measures impact on economics, social patterns, and institutional arrangements for allocation of water, as well as on the nature of our needs for water. Because water is necessary for life, substitutions for a scarce resource are limited, price cannot be used to ration water because of social inequities, and national policy could require use of water for lower value uses such as agriculture. Irrigation systems to apply the water can be fairly expensive, with annual costs ranging from several tens to several hundred U.S. dollars per hectare. Therefore, it is necessary to maximize other inputs for crop production, such as use of fertilizers and pesticides. These inputs of off-farm energy have led to large increases in agricultural production during the past 50 years, but the inputs are expensive.