A new 5 million dollar, five-year project led by the WRC and funded by the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Water for Food Production Systems Challenge Area will be working to identify promising emerging technologies and synergistic policies to improve technical and allocative water use efficiency in irrigated agriculture.
The research team, which includes scientists at the University of Idaho, University of Washington, Kansas State University, University of Utah, Mammoth Trading, Aspect Consulting, and a diverse group of water users and stakeholders in the Columbia River Basin.
The project will focus on how seasonal water availability forecasting, satellite-based consumptive use monitoring, and computer-based smart market technology can be used in conjunction with changes in water use and water transfer rules to improve water use. “This exciting project will help find ways to improve water use efficiency in agriculture, by focusing on how technology, water rights and regulation work together to make the most of available water for all of its social and environmental values,” said Jonathan Yoder, Lead Investigator and Director of the WRC.
For more, visit the WRC’s webpage for this project, and the WSU press release.