The Ogallala Aquifer: Water Scarcity on the Texas High Plains (VIDEO)

We will have to develop much more sustainable, or durable forms of food production because the way we have done things up to now are no longer as viable as they once appeared to be. -- Prince Charles' speech on the future of food, May 4th, 2011

On the southern high plains of Texas, on a time-scale less than an average human lifetime, growing concerns over water scarcity are playing out. In this semi-arid region of the country that represents the largest contiguous land mass dedicated for production agriculture, the total annual rainfall may be 18 inches, or in some years, substantially less. Since the rainfall is not distributed evenly over the growing season, or to be counted upon when most needed, the majority of the agricultural production (around 70 percent of food and fiber grown in this region) comes from irrigated lands.

This short documentary provides a glimpse into an unusually important, and long-running research and demonstration project, called the Texas Coalition for Sustainable Integrated Systems Research (TeCSIS) and the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation (TAWC) that started with a grant from SARE to form TeCSIS. This combined project (TeCSIS/TAWC) involves scores of scientific researchers, educational institutions, government agencies, and local area farmers (producers) that are trying to find answers to extend the life of the Ogallala Aquifer, and promote more sustainable, economic viability for this invaluable agricultural region.

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Comments

[JScott]

10:30 AM on 02/16/2012

Yup we did all this in Cali. in the 40's and 50's and Tx has learned nothing as usual they think yup we can keep growin more crops and building more housing tracts and urban sprawl and put up fancy ornamental lakes for even more people because dammit it's our God given right.....it's Texas after all.

[artleads]

10:13 PM on 02/15/2012

I read in Wikipedia that the Ogallala, due to overuse, only has 20 more years of water supply left. Given all its problems it certainly is the wrong place to run a tar sand pipeline over!.

[cosmicdart]

05:17 PM on 02/15/2012

We'd love to pipe down fresh drinking water from our bountiful aquifers in the Northeast, but unfortunately they're all being poisoned by oil and gas frecking as toxic chemicals come up from miles below through massive vertical rifts rattled by swarms of small earthquakes. We're trading fresh drinking water for natural gas. Which is more important in the long run? We need a pipe line from the North into Texas carrying drinking water instead of one carrying tar muck from Canada into the Gulf. We need a water lobby in Congress!

[artleads]

10:06 PM on 02/15/2012

Tragic, the fracking. We'll wake up to be sure, but (at the rate we're going) too late.

[mattamorr]

11:40 PM on 02/14/2012

Such a vitally important subject to our ultimate survival as living species on this planet. How we use our planet's infinite resources with not only logic and intelligence, but also in concert with love and foresight as these modest people in this film do will determine the length of our ultimate existence.

You hear the word "hero" a lot when we talk about those in the military or in public safety, but to my mind, these simple folks who talk and work so passionately about the welfare and continuation all of the world's species are truly honest heroes.

[KarmaPatrol]

10:24 PM on 02/14/2012

The Comanches called this dry area the "Sea of Death"; taking too much water where the aquifer isn't being recharged in a meaningful way will hasten it's return to a semi-arid grassland. Then again, maybe reverting the South Plains back into a big buffalo reservation wouldn't be half bad.

[vakh]

05:45 AM on 02/15/2012

So what?