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13 - Fossil water and agriculture in southwestern Kansas

from Part V

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2010

By
Lisa M. Butler Harrington ,
Max Lu  and
John Harrington Jr.
Edited by
Brent Yarnal ,
Colin Polsky  and
James O'Brien
Brent Yarnal
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Colin Polsky
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
James O'Brien
Affiliation:
Kingston University, London
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Summary

Introduction

Among the four areas investigated as part of the HERO project, semi-arid southwestern Kansas is the most reliant on agriculture. This region faces far different issues with respect to land-use/land-cover change, vulnerability to environmental stress (including hydroclimatic variability and change), and sustainability than do densely settled areas and those locales with low economic reliance on agriculture. In both this region and other non-urban parts of the country, populations in many rural counties and small towns are declining, adjustments to economic globalization are taking place, and fluctuations in forcing by coupled human and natural systems are continuing to affect agricultural success. Changes faced by farming regions also vary among those places with generally sufficient rainfall to grow most important crops, those that receive little rain and lack supplemental sources of water, those reliant on renewable surface water sources, and those reliant on declining groundwater sources. Much of southwestern Kansas is reliant on declining groundwater resources, but some areas lack sufficient ground and/or surface water for use in farming.

The name High Plains–Ogallala (HPO-)HERO recognizes this agricultural region's physical identity and its reliance on the Ogallala and other aquifers. Over the last 30 years, the research site has developed a rich literature that connects the people and land of southwestern Kansas (e.g., Worster 1979; Warren et al. 1982; Reisner 1986; Sherow 1990; Kromm and White 1992, 2001; White 1994; White and Kromm 1995; Opie 2000; Bloomquist et al. 2002; Harrington et al. 2003; Broadway and Stull 2006).

Type
Chapter
Information
Sustainable Communities on a Sustainable Planet
The Human-Environment Regional Observatory Project
 , pp. 269 - 291
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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