Abstract:
The overall objective of the study is to measure changes in agricultural production
and water use patterns under various water supply and allocation mechanisms. The
methodology nests an economic model of on-farm decisions in a basin-wide hydrologic
model. The economic model forecasts the use of applied water, technology and crop
evapotranspiration The hydrologic model measures basin-wide water use. The empirical
focus is on the Upper Klamath Basin which straddles the California and Oregon border
and hosts a variety of state and county governmental entities, wildlife refuges,
endangered lake and stream fish as well as several Indian Nations, all with jurisdiction,
and competing demands for water. The findings show that when estimating basin-wide
water savings the adoption of irrigation efficiency improvements can reduce the basin-wide
savings. Specifically, if reductions in agricultural water delivers are used as a proxy
to estimate basin-wide reductions in water use the estimate will be 2 percent to 9 percent
too high.
