A Southern Odyssey of On-Farm Reservoirs Optimization
Unlocking Water Sustainability: The Journey to Optimizing use of TWR and On-Farm Reservoirs for Groundwater Longevity
Why do we want to conserve groundwater?
The transformation of Mississippi's Delta region into an agricultural area has led to an alarming decline in groundwater levels. The over-reliance on the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer for irrigation is unsustainable, threatening the ecological balance, agricultural economy, and community stability. This problem demands urgent scholarly attention to inform sustainable water management policies and practices.
Average percentage of increase relative to the base scenario in alluvial aquifer water levels for each conservation scenario
Solutions: Tailwater recovery system and on-farm storage
2012, Sullivan, Michael E.
Water conservation planning: How a systems approach to irrigation promotes sustainable water use
2014, Graydon W Carruth, et at.
Reusing irrigation water from tailwater recovery systems: Implications on field and stream-level nutrient status
2016, Joby M. Prince Czarnecki, et at.
Quantifying capture and use of tailwater recovery systems
2018, Austin R. Omer, et at.
Development of water budget for tailwater recovery systems in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley
2022, Klarissa Kahill, et at.
Optimal management of irrigation water from aquifer and surface sources
2023, Nicolas E. Quintana-Ashwell, et at.
Water quality characterization of on-farm storage tailwater recovery systems and groundwater in northeast Arkansas: considerations for artificial recharge
Our project
Unanswered questions we seek to address:
- What is the sustainable balance between use of groundwater and surface water for irrigation?
- Should we continue investing resources into water capture practices or should we shift focus to field management practices that use less water?
Data
TWR and on-farm reservoirs data (NRCS guideline and shapefile)
Farms and crop data
Groundwater data
Method
Inventory optimization using python language programming
Inventory optimization attempts to find the best distribution of inventory levels that meets specified demand under cost constraints.
Optimization inventory in our problem
Equations
Objective 1: Minimizing groundwater use
Objective 2: Minimizing the cost
Constraints
- Year 2020
- 162 fields
- 72 on-farm reservoirs
- 90 TWRs
Using Python language programming
Results
On-farm reservoir inventory
TWR inventory
Future work
We plan to conduct sensitivity analysis under climate change scenarios to further refine the model and recommendations.
