Responding to Concerns About Flexibility in Agricultural Water Management in the Western U.S: A Climate of Uncertainty

This paper for the Proceedings is due well before we will have results of workshops on problems which may arise from new forms of water transfer, so the paper describes the larger context and the new forms. These materials focus on Colorado, but applications are not limited to Colorado. The presentation will report on later progress; both will be available on a website to be established. The organization of the paper is (1): Abstract of the Presentation, (2) Changing Demands for Water — Additional Context, (3) Under-represented Interests, (4) New Forms of Transfer Under Discussion, (5) Potential Benefits of Better Management: The Big Vision, and (6) Getting There. The desirability of increased flexibility in agricultural water management in the Western U.S. has been long established. The pressures of changing demands for water interact with very fast urban and peri-urban population growth to threaten transfer of irrigation water away from rural areas and traditional uses with minimal benefit to the areas of origin, and with significant threat to environmental and recreational interests. In a thin, disorganized water market, transfers have been generally large, carried high adverse impacts, and been arranged in secretive fashion. Leasing, water banking, and other flexible management techniques have increased in recent years, partly in response to high interest in the preservation of agriculture and its landscapes. Improved flexibility in management includes increasing opportunity to respond to climate information. Work on barriers to use of climate information applications led to envisioning use of water transfers to create means for non-market interests to enter water rights markets and to stimulate improvements in agriculture and rural viability. This paper includes a concise presentation of the author's formulation of three kinds of transfers needed, and principles important for water transfers.