Irrigation technology decisions in the presence of waterlogging and soil salinity

Waterlogging and salinisation have contributed to the demise of ancient civilisations and continue to threaten the sustainability of irrigated agriculture today. This paper evaluates the adoption of higher efficiency irrigation systems as an alternative for reducing the impact of waterlogging and salinisation within a region of Colorado's Lower Arkansas River Valley. This is accomplished by linking a detailed hydrologic model, which has been calibrated from extensive field data, to an economic optimisation model in order to estimate the productivity and profitability of agriculture under the current irrigation system and a set of proposed irrigation systems. Although the results of the study indicate that increasing irrigation efficiency across the study area will reduce the negative impacts of waterlogging and soil salinisation, the costs associated with achieving these higher efficiency irrigation systems are estimated to exceed the benefits to crop productivity.