Non Technical Summary
With more frequent and severe droughts and a growing demand for food production, water supplies for agriculture are under strain in the Southwest (SW) and Southern Plains (SP). As a result, agricultural producers face a future of being asked to do more with less water. The OpenET system, a satellite-based evapotranspiration (ET) data and open data service, provides an opportunity to accelerate the use of data-driven management. The goal of our proposal is to quantify field to basin-scale water needs and evaluate the conserved consumptive water use from previous water conservation investments. To understand realistic water savings from conservation investments across the SW and SP regions, this project will answer timely and relevant questions such as: How much water is needed to support irrigation within a given basin? What changes in consumptive use of water have resulted from past and ongoing interventions and investments in water conservation and irrigation efficiency?

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
111	0210	2050	65%
112	0210	2050	35%

Knowledge Area
111 - Conservation and Efficient Use of Water; 112 - Watershed Protection and Management;

Subject Of Investigation
0210 - Water resources;

Field Of Science
2050 - Hydrology;

Goals / Objectives
The goal of the project is to quantify field to basin-scale water needs and evaluate the conserved consumptive water use from previous water conservation investments. To understand realistic water savings from conservation investments across the South West and Southern Plains regions, this project will answer timely and relevant questions such as: How much water is needed to support irrigation within a given basin? What changes in consumptive use of water have resulted from past and ongoing interventions and investments in water conservation and irrigation efficiency? To achieve this goal we plan to: 1) Build OpenET custom data reporting services to automate and deliver actionable data to stakeholders 2) Quantify the amount of water needed within a water management system and quantify the conserved consumptive use from prior conservation investments 3) Increase training opportunities focused on OpenET data for quantifying water demands and quantifying conserved consumptive use; 4) Identify remaining user-driven data needs and challenges to steer future work through a final evaluation workshop. Through these objectives we will expand the USDA Climate Hub capacity to "serve as a 'climate clearinghouse' of tools and technologies for region-specific needs."

Project Methods
Through a series of data-to-decision activities centered around tool development, data analysis, training opportunities, and stakeholder engagement our methods include:Building out the OpenET FARMS tools for agricultural producers, irrigation districts, and Climate Hubs.Develop new workflows in OpenET to automate comparisons for a given locationacross multiple years and comparing two locations for the same time.Design and develop custom reporting interfaceQuantifying the amount of water needed within a water management system or a particular field and quantify changes in consumptive use associated with prior conservation investments, such as those supported by NRCS CIG grants.We will identify a set candidate fields/farms to quantify changes in consumptive use associatedwith the following initial scenarios:The transition from one known irrigation method to a new method or technological improvement to the irrigation system (year-to-year comparison for same location)The transition from a known crop to fallow conditions (year-to-year comparison for the same location)The transition from one crop rotation to another crop rotation (year-to year or place-to-place comparison)We will quantify the average consumptive use demand from (2017-2022) for the Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico.We will compare OpenET consumptive use with applied water measurements to evaluatewater application efficiency.Increasingtraining opportunities focused on use of satellite-driven ET models centered around case studies that identify crop/agricultural system water demands and evaluatebenefits of prior conservation investments.Develop new training materials to support stakeholder engagement including slides, brief modular videos (5-minutes or less), written documentationand other training resources related to use of ET data andinformation products.Establish working groups to provide feedbackon on the FARMS tool development. The team will document user requirements, and priorities for data products and functionality.Organize and convene workshops within partner Climate Hub's regions.Conducting a final evaluation workshop to guide future tool development, outreach activities, and technical support activities. The final workshop will involvediverse stakeholders and focus ontesting the finalversions of the FARMS reporting tools.Success on this project will be measured by several key project elements.For the FARMS tasks, success will be measured by a working version of the FARMS tool and over longer time scales OpenET can track usage by API endpoint.For the water demand quantification, success will be measured by reports on consumptive water usage for key water basins and a report summarizing conserved consumptive use by conservation projects.For training opportunities, success will be measured by the number of training workshops, the training materials produced, and the establishment of a working group to provide feedback on the FARMS tool.For the final workshop, success will be measured using both qualitative and quantitative impact methods. The assessment will focus on the impact and value of theFARMS reporting tools. Surveys will support quantitative impact assessment and user testimonials will support qualitative impact assessment.