Abstract
Aquifer depletion due to intensive irrigation threatens global economies, food security and ecosystems. This Perspective examines the hydrological, social and economic complexities of managing groundwater resources, focusing on the Sheridan 6 Local Enhanced Management Area in the US High Plains aquifer. Here irrigator-led conservation efforts reduced groundwater use by 25% and slowed aquifer depletion by 65% while maintaining farmers’ incomes. This success resulted from a hybrid integration of bottom-up rule development with top-down enforcement, providing flexible multi-year water allocations and aligning management with local conditions. From this, we identify transferable governance tenets for sustainable groundwater management in similar regions.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) grant no. RISE-2108196 (‘DISES: Toward resilient and adaptive community-driven management of groundwater-dependent agricultural systems’), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant no. 80NSSC22K1276 (‘Managing Temporal Trade-Offs through Irrigation and Yield Forecasting to Advance Groundwater Conservation’) and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) grant no. FF-NIA19-0000000084 (‘Achieving sustainable groundwater management through innovative governance and optimal agricultural water use under conflicting objectives’). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, NASA or FFAR. We also thank S. Kenyon, Northwest Groundwater Management District 4 Manager, and J. Tollefson for their useful comments on an earlier version of this article.
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M.E.O.A, S.Z. and J.J.B. developed the manuscript concept and led the writing. M.E.O.A, D.O.W. and B.B.W. prepared figures. All authors contributed to paper development and revision in their specific areas of expertise: social aspects: M.E.O.A, H.C.S., D.J.Y., B.W.G., S.L., M.R.S. and L.T.M.; hydrological aspects: M.E.O.A, S.Z., J.J.B, J.M.D., D.O.W., B.B.W., G.C.B. and C.-Y.L.; economic aspects: M.E.O.A, N.P.H., B.G., S.M.S., J.J.A. and Q.C.Y.
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Orduña Alegría, M.E., Zipper, S., Shin, H.C. et al. Unlocking aquifer sustainability through irrigator-driven groundwater conservation. Nat Sustain 7, 1574–1583 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01437-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01437-0
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