MOVING FORWARD ON AGRICULTURAL WATER CONSERVATION IN THE COLORADO RIVER BASIN

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1001372
• Grant No.: 2013-51130-21523
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $649,000.00
• Proposal No.: 2013-05798
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2013
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2017
• Grant Year: 2013
• Program Code: [110.C]- Watershed Scale Proposals

Recipient Organization
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
FORT COLLINS,CO 80523

Performing Department
Colorado Water Institute

Non Technical Summary
Growing pressure on freshwater resources has put a target on agriculture. This is particularly true in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) where the U.S. Department of Interior has called for an initiative to address shortages induced by prolonged drought, climate change and population growth. Farmers and ranchers, who control 80% of water in the CRB are targeted to permanently conserve as much as one million acre feet of water that can be transferred to meet growing demands. To conserve even a fraction of that amount will require unprecedented collaboration to overcome technical and socioeconomic obstacles. Agriculture must take the lead to conserve water while protecting food security, rural communities and ecosystems. If this is unsuccessful, other powerful interests will buy the water outright and dry up agricultural lands. The Colorado Water Institute at Colorado State University has built extensive credibility with agricultural stakeholders in the CRB through years of project work. Combining engineering and social sciences, our team will empower irrigators in the CRB to develop the challenging but achievable actions needed. We will integrate research, teaching and extension to: Demonstrate how infrastructure and management technologies can be employed to conserve water Highlight the impediments that complicate Ag water conservation, and engage stakeholders to develop practical actions to overcome them Support agricultural leaders and Extension throughout the CRB to sell the changes required to keep agriculture secure. This project will result in new knowledge, tools, and initiatives to implement Ag water conservation efforts in the CRB and beyond.

Animal Health Component

80%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

10%

Applied

80%

Developmental

10%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
111	0210	3020	25%
111	0210	3080	25%
111	0210	3030	25%
111	0210	3050	25%

Knowledge Area
111 - Conservation and Efficient Use of Water;

Subject Of Investigation
0210 - Water resources;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education; 3050 - Law; 3080 - Sociology; 3030 - Information and communication;

Keywords

agriculture

colorado river

irrigation technology

stakeholder participation

water security

Goals / Objectives
Our goal is to bring into sharp focus the significant barriers--operational, economic, legal and cultural--to conserving agricultural water in the CRB, and to bring together Ag producers, water managers, engineers, and social scientists to create new tools, integrated decision processes, and a plan of action for overcoming these barriers. Agriculture in the CRB is being challenged to permanently reduce water use by one million acre feet in order to address a looming supply gap threatened by extended drought, predicted climate change, and population growth. The goal of this project is to provide a framework that can be used throughout the CRB to systematically catalogue the operational, legal, economic, and cultural barriers to adopting agricultural water conservation and create a plan of action for overcoming them. Recognizing that the complexity and diversity of agricultural water in the CRB preclude one-size-fits-all solutions, the project will pursue a "context-responsive" approach that aims to identify a range of strategies that can be adapted effectively in diverse contexts. This integrated research, education, and extension project will address the question: how can agricultural water be conserved and transferred to meet growing needs in the West while sustaining an irrigated agriculture that is crucial to our food system; to the viability of rural communities whose histories, livelihoods, and cultures are embedded in agriculture; and to environments and economies that depend on farming's open space and return flows? OBJECTIVES The following interrelated objectives are fundamental to creating the knowledge and tools to directly influence the implementation of Ag water conservation, whether for agricultural use or transfer to other sectors. Direct communication and knowledge of those who manage most of the CRB water--the farmers and their irrigation districts--is essential to crafting locally led implementation. Each objective is supported in the METHODS section with a complete description of the tasks, an approach to each task, the steps required to complete each task, and a description of the expected outcomes. Objective 1. Quantitatively evaluate the technical and engineering aspects (and the associated barriers) of conserving agricultural water in the CRB to build a conceptual framework for local decisions. We will use standard engineering approaches (water balance methods, quantification of baseline and potentially conserved water, benefit cost ratios, technical feasibility analysis) to provide the information needed for local evaluation of various approaches for conserving Ag water through improving infrastructure and changing management at all levels, from field to system scales. This objective will result in information for the decision tools developed under Objective 3. Objective 2 Qualitatively document and analyze the legal, economic, and sociological barriers and potential impacts related to the adoption of available methods to conserve irrigation water in the CRB. Using social science primary and secondary research methods, we will systematically analyze the diverse frameworks of incentives and disincentives shaping agricultural producers' decisions to engage or not engage in agricultural water conservation. We will systematically review secondary academic and technical literatures related to agricultural water conservation. We will carry out semi-structured in-depth interviews with a structured sample of producers across the basin to discover what factors they see as determining their conservation-related decisions, what changes they see as necessary to make conservation more appropriate, and how they see their relationship to other efforts to find new water sources for expected CRB needs. This latter question is key to enlisting the active support of agricultural water users in generating new water sources for expected supply gaps. Objective 3 Conduct engagement research with Ag stakeholders, Extension professionals, university social scientists, economists, and legal experts to develop a user-driven decision matrix and process that can be used to guide the appropriate implementation of conservation programs at the local level. We will work with Extension Specialists and Agents to engage irrigation districts, farmers and ranchers, university social scientists and economists, and legal experts to develop a shared understanding of the technological opportunities, benefits to agriculture and society at large, and the economic, legal and cultural tradeoffs that result from conserving water in order to develop a set of user-driven tools and a decision matrix to guide decision-making regarding adoption of Ag water conservation strategies. The decision matrix will be used in a facilitated process to break through the screen of complexity that currently tends to immobilize decision-making and action. The decision matrixwill detail specific barriers to utilizing available water conserving technology and the step-by-step actions that would need to be taken in each circumstance to surmount that barrier. Some actions could lead directly to the realization of Ag water conservation, while other actions could lead to joining with other irrigation management agencies and/or other water use sectors such as environmental and/or urban to push for policy change that would open the way for Ag water conservation actions. In addition, we will host workshops and a symposium in the CRB with our university partners and Extension to introduce the decision matrix and the facilitated process for helping Ag water users decide the best water conservation strategies for their given circumstance. Objective 4 Develop, document, and disseminate case studies of successful conservation programs that have been implemented in the basin for use in university curriculum and as a showcase for decision makers at all levels--from the farm scale to the USDA. These case studies will be permanently housed on the Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse (www.agwaterconservation.colostate.edu) and available for use by faculty and students and to serve communities of practice that wish to collaboratively address the complex issues surrounding Ag water use and conservation.

Project Methods
Objective 1. Task 1.1: Identify irrigation districts that have successfully implemented conservation programs and pick examples to quantify in detail: baseline water use, methods employed to conserve water, cost of implementation, amount of water conserved, cost per unit of conserved water, fate of conserved water, sustainability of conservation, and lessons learned at the district and farmer level. This task will require considerable cooperation from irrigation district personnel and their boards of directors to gain access to the data needed. Task 1.2: Develop schemata to demonstrate how a sub-basin view of water conveyance and irrigation practices could generate sufficient water to maintain current farm production while conserving significant amounts of water to be used for other ag or others uses elsewhere. This task will require working closely with selected irrigation districts that have indicated their willingness to cooperate with other sectors to determine pathways whereby conserved water can be transferred to other uses. Task 1.3: Build a conceptual framework based on actual data and case studies to demonstrate how irrigation districts could improve their infrastructure and management using available technology to result in benefits for their own operational flexibility to increase profit, while conserving large amounts of water--if economic, legal, institutional and cultural barriers did not exist. This task will utilize data gathered on water conservation programs and implementation across the basin as well as data from the selected pilot projects. A spreadsheet-based approach will be utilized to organize and query the data. Graphic visualizations of traditional district service areas and how conserved water may expand supplies, affect return flows, and impact production areas will be developed for the pilot districts. Objective 2 Task 2.1: Catalogue the array of legal, economic and sociological barriers to ag water conservation that have been documented, including legal research that has been conducted on a state by state basis. Task 2.2: Select a sample of ag producers and water managers for telephone and face-to-face interviews. Qualitative data from these interviews and from relevant secondary research will be analyzed using QSR nVivo social science analysis software. Task 2.3: Synthesize the findings from the literature review, the interviews and relevant secondary research into a form that will be distributed to stakeholders and social scientists for their use in Objective 3. Objective 3 Task 3.1: We believe there are many barriers at multiple scales to the adoption of conservation practices and that a local approach at the irrigation district level will be required to break through these barriers. To be effective in this complex and contentious environment, any decision tool that is adopted at the local level must have user input in its development from the very beginning of the process. First, we will present the research uncovered in Objectives 1 and 2 in order to develop a shared understanding of the barriers and potential for overcoming them. Second, we will facilitate a process in which we catalogue the inputs and develop a decision matrix for irrigation districts, ditch companies, conservancy districts, and others to use for guiding their decision-making in regard to adoption of ag water conservation strategies. Third, we will implement the decision matrix with willing irrigation districts, specific to their own highly individualized circumstances. Fourth, we will make changes in the matrix based on what we learned from exercising it with these stakeholders. Task 3.2: Train Extension Specialists and Agents, as well as irrigation district personnel, to engage irrigation district boards and farmers in the use of the decision matrix and process to facilitate decision-making in regard to adoption of ag water conservation strategies. Task 3.3: Expand the Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse to provide a platform for disseminating what is learned as well as facilitating communication as the project unfolds. Task 3.4: Foster communications about ag water conservation to provide information on project outcomes and assist in providing information to diverse clientele. We will build on our existing Addressing Water for Ag the CRB website to provide data and reports developed through the project. Content developed through the project will also be made available to eXtension. Objective 4 Task 4.1: Develop and showcase specific examples of ag water conservation being successfully employed in the CRB with emphasis on how barriers were surmounted. These case studies will contain technical, engineering, agronomic, and socioeconomic data that can be harvested for use in university curriculum. Documentation of best practices and obstacles surmounted will provide significant and meaningful education and outreach to multiple audiences, promoting idea generation and the building of relationships within and among water user sectors. Task 4.2: Conduct at least one workshop in project year 1 and year 2, and a symposium in year 3. The workshops will focus on irrigators and key thought leaders in the CRB to help develop the decision matrix and to disseminate the research findings from this project on ag water conservation. The goal of the symposium will be to broaden the understanding of the opportunities and incentives for implementation of Ag water conservation. Task 4.3: We will train students during the course of this project. In addition, we plan to reach out to the seven LGUs in the CRB to provide study materials and webinar to teach interested students basic convening and facilitation skills, using models available from the program in Water Conflict Management and Transformation at Oregon State University. PROJECT EVALUATION The outcome of key activities will be assessed through quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative tools include web-tracking engines, and qualitative tools include one-on-one interviews, phone surveys, and workshop and conference evaluations. The impacts of our interviews, workshops, and symposium will be determined by participation and new partnerships developed with stakeholders. The size, scope, and diversity of individuals accessing data, information, and tools from the project website will give an indication of the impact of this activity. Active participation by a diverse community of practice will provide another metric of impact. Refer to Table 1 in the project proposal for specific expected project results, evaluation tools and indicators of sucess.

Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/17

Outputs
Target Audience:We have continued to reach agricultural producers, water resource management entities, municipal water suppliers, irrigation supply businesses, environmnental organization leaders, community leaders, legal experts,professional water researchers and students, both university and high school, and other groups with interests in using or understanding agricultural water. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Objective 1 activity has provided significant professional development training for several undergraduate research assistants, Zach Weber, Dustyn Mergelman, Craig Moore, Carter Stoudt and Kelsey Lindner, all of whom gained valuable experience with water resources monitoring of irrigation flows, tailwater, soil moisture, evapotranspiration and precipitation. These students also were trained on data collection techniques using telemetry and cloud-based data management. Objective 2 activities have provided significant professional development training for its research assistant, Kelsea MacIlroy, who has received training and gained valuable experience with secondary literature review and extensive field research in three CRB states, qualitative data coding and analysis, writing and publication, and a range of presentation experiences with audiences including other professional researchers, current and retired government officials, political leaders, members of the community, university students and others. Significantly, MacIlroy received in August 2016 a highly competitive Arkansas River Basin Water Forum scholarship in support of her dissertation research related to this project. Objective 4 this year provided opportunity for five CSU undergraduates who are part of the ASSET program (in-state tuition benefit for deserving undocumented students) to learn about water supply challenges in the Colorado River Basin, and to work withhigh school students to plan a Denver Youth Water Summit to encourage low income students of color to engage in dialogue about community water issues and to consider careers in water. Our Colorado River Basin Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse and our Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse websites have together had more than 100 new references added. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Presentations have led to improved dialogue about ag water conservations issue, including"Conservation for Whom and What? Multi-stakeholder Collaboration around Agricultural Water in the Colorado River Basin" as part of the panel session for the University Council on Water Resources Conference in Fort Collins, Colorado by Kelsea MacIlroy in June 2017; "Sustaining Irrigated Agriculture in the Lower Gunnison River Basin Using Efficiency and Economics" at the USCID Conference in Fort Collins, Colorado in October 2016 by Perry Cabot and Dave Kanzer;a presentation by Kelsea MacIlroy and Peter Leigh Taylor in September 2016 at the Colorado Water Official's Association annual meeting on work related to environmental flows on the Upper Colorado River as a part of ag/environmental cooperation; Perry Cabot led a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation tour for the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association in September 2016; We have conducted a number of guest lectures regarding agricultural water: "Irrigation Efficiency & Water Conservation: Preliminary results from the No Chico Brush Field Studies" by Perry Cabot for a August 2016 webinar series; two by Kelsea MacIlroy titled "Sociology & Water Law in Colorado" at Colorado State University-Pueblo for undergraduate courses in the fall of 2016; "Practical Crop Production Irrigation Practices" by Perry Cabot in October 2015 for the ARGS 100 Course at Western Colorado Community College in Delta, Colorado; "Sociology and Water: Agriculture and Environmental Collaboration in the West" by Kelsea MacIlroy for a fall 2015 Intro to Sociology course at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs; and "Keeping the River Wet: Agricultural and Environmental Collaboration in the American West" by Kelsea MacIlroy for a Fall 2015 Agriculture and Global Society course at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.Two Colorado Water Institute Special Reports were published in 2016 and one in 2017: "Case Studies Outlining Challenges and Opportunities for Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin" by Masih Ahkbari and MaryLou Smith and "How Diversion and Beneficial Use of Water Affect the Value and Measure of a Water Right--Is 'Use It or Lose It' an Absolute?" by Reagan Waskom, Kevin Rein, Dick Wolfe, and MaryLou Smith; and "Where Now with Alternative Transfer Methods - ATMs - in Colorado?" by Anne Castle, MaryLou Smith, John Stulp, Brad Udall and Reagan Waskom. The western water policy publication Water Report published a lead article in the fall of 2015 by the same title, "How Diversion and Beneficial Use of Water Affect the Value and Measure of a Water Right--Is 'Use It or Lose It' an Absolute?" by Reagan Waskom and MaryLou Smith. Additional articles include "The Future of Ag Water Markets: Opportunities for Innovation in the Stream Management Plan Process" in fall of 2016 issue of Colorado Water by Spencer Williams and MaryLou Smith; and a late 2015 Rural Connections Article by Elizabeth Plombon titled "Colorado River Basin Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse--An Innovative Web-Based Project." The Colorado Foundation for Water Education included an article by Kelsea MacIlroy in their Your Colorado WaterBlog titled "From Vine to Wine On Tour in Palisade, Colorado--Managing Water for Multiple Needs and Irrigation Efficiency and Local Economy." Kelsea McIlroy received in August 2016 a highly competitive Arkansas River Basin Water Forum scholarship based on her dissertation research for this project. Furthermore, we have three peer-review articles currently in-process: ""Drivers and Barriers for the Adoption of Irrigation Scheduling and Soil Moisture Monitoring in Irrigated Agriculture" by Perry Cabot, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith, Taylor, Peter Leigh, Kelsea MacIlroy and Brad Udall to be submitted to The Journal of Soil and Water Conservation; "Every ditch is different?: Emerging insights from innovative collaboration for agricultural water conservation and security in the Colorado River basin" by Peter Leigh Taylor, Kelsea MacIlroy, Perry Cabot, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith and Brad Udall to be submitted to The Journal of Soil and Water Conservation; and "Where Rivers Change Direction: Exploring structural conditions influencing collaboration between agricultural and environmental interests in the Colorado River basin" by Kelsea MacIlroy, Peter Leigh Taylor, Perry Cabot, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith and Brad Udall to be submitted to the Agriculture and Human Values journal. A piece is currently being created by Scientia http://www.scientia.global/ to convey the results of our project for the layperson both in hard copy and electronically. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Research was conducted collaboratively with the No Chico Brush (NCB) farmer-led advocacy group to conduct local evaluations various approaches for conserving and saving agricultural water through improving infrastructure at the field scale. Formal and informal interactions with the farmers of the Gunnison Basin identified four primary reasons why switching away from furrow irrigation is advantageous. First, farmers express a goal of saving on labor costs or dealing with labor shortages. In particular, the expense of improved irrigation systems is considered more justifiable by producers who operate at a margin of higher profitability. Evaluations of irrigation improvements in the Gunnison Basin are generally in agreement with the conventional wisdom that furrow irrigation systems are less efficient at field-scale application of water, as compared with improved systems such as sprinkler and drip. Attainable irrigation efficiencies for graded furrow, sprinkler (with spray heads) and drip irrigation are reported at 80%, 95%, and 95% (Howell et al., 2003), but in practice the achieved efficiencies are often lower. Despite the advantages and drivers of changing their irrigation systems to be more efficient, producers in the areas of the Western Slope and particularly the Uncompaghre Valley have experienced significant challenges in using these newer systems. The Gunnison Basin evaluations identified concerns. First, the electrical and fuel cost of operating mechanized irrigation systems is perceived as a significant barrier. Secondly, operational troubles are experienced by farmers wanting to satisfy high ET requirements (e.g., alfalfa) while contending with slower infiltration rates on clay and clay loam soils. The effect of this obstacle is most often experienced when overhead sprinkler wheel tracks consistently consolidate due to improper nozzling near support towers. Too often it is also the case that pivots are adopted without a pathway for conversion, such as 1-2 years of fallow or cover-cropping. Thirdly, field shape and optimization emerged as another obstacle. More specifically, some producers have reservations about converting square fields into circular fields, and sacrificing the ability to farm the corners profitably. Additional obstacles of field configuration and size were expressed, considering that most fields on the Western Slope are currently small (< 20 ac) and irregularly shaped. Fourth, farmers express frustration regarding the lack of industry and government support for technical service and training to use improved irrigation systems. This frustration also spills over into the technological reliability, which is not considered inherent, regarding everything from traveling outer sprinkler arms to soil moisture sensors. Fifth, producers who rely on telemetry to operate or monitor their systems express frustration over the lack of cellular signal stability. Objective 2: Using social science primary and secondary literature and field research methods, we systematically analyzed the diverse frameworks of incentives and disincentives shaping agricultural producers' decisions to engage or not engage in agricultural water conservation. We reviewed secondary academic and technical literatures related to agricultural water conservation. We carried out more than fifty semi-structured in-depth face to face and telephone interviews with a structured sample of producers involved in six cases of multi-stakeholder collaboration for agricultural water conservation for multiple purposes, and visited those projects in three CRB states: Colorado, Arizona and California. The six case in-depth case studies encompassed three types of experience with collaboration for agricultural water conservation--between irrigators and environmentalists; irrigators and municipal water suppliers; and irrigators and government agencies. In face-to-face and telephone interviews and in field visits to these collaborative experiences, we studied what brought diverse groups together around agricultural water conservation; how they surmounted or sought to surmount conservation's formidable obstacles; and what lessons from their experiences may be useful elsewhere in the Basin. Participants in these six collaborative experiences have implemented a range of fallowing, market leasing, shared infrastructure investment and other mechanisms to conserve agricultural water that can then be used for multiple uses while continuing to benefit irrigators. The social science research associated with Objective 2 has: 1. Developed a preliminary framework for identifying and assessing enabling hydrological, legal and social structural conditions that can help surmount barriers to agricultural water conservation and may, with appropriate support, facilitate multistakeholder collaboration around agricultural water in diverse local contexts. 2. Identified and analyzed key legal and socio-economic barriers to agricultural water conservation in six case study regions. Legal barriers include the potential loss of rights to conserved water through abandonment, the need to ensure irrigation return flows to junior users, the legal hazards of navigating water use changes, and the challenge of "shepherding" conserved water to its intended beneficiaries. Socio-economic barriers include irrigators' perception that they are "under siege" with "targets on their backs" in a context of unequal power and unclear or non-existent economic benefits from conserving agricultural water. Cultural barriers include resistance against apparent external threats to local communities and ways of life; uncertainties created by a lack of knowledge about water conservation; and differences in how diverse users value water and define conservation. 3. Identified and analyzed key enabling hydrological, legal and social conditions in six case study regions that may facilitate locally appropriate and effective multi-stakeholder collaboration around agricultural water conservation. Objective 3: In our final year of the project, we convened a Lower Basin States workshop of 25 agricultural, tribal, environmental and urban stakeholders to consider"alternative transfer methods"-- rotational fallowing, deficit irrigation, crop switching, and irrigation efficiency improvements which we had synthesized from literature and case studies as part of a project co-funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Comments received from this workshop and from the earlier Upper Basin workshop were shared with federal agencies participating in a third workshop on the subject in Washington DC. The results of the synthesis and the workshops are being published through aColorado Water Institute Special Paper.Weco-convened and facilitated three different workshopsin Colorado in whichwere presented specific policy proposals to facilitate adoption of alternative transfer methods to reduce permanent fallowing of ag land and water to meet urban water needs. Proposals were vetted by the respective groups and written into aColorado Water Institute Special Report 31, Where Now on Alternative Transfer Methods--ATMs--in Colorado? This Special Report has been the subject of numerous subsequent dialogues, and was utilized by the Colorado Ag Water Alliance as they developed, with our assistance, their position paper onalternative transfer methods. Also resulting fromour Special Report was the development of a decisionmaking tool on the part of Colorado Cattlemen's Association tohelp ag producers determine the feasibility of their participating in alternative transfer methods.Our earlier Special Report on Use it or Lose It this year led to the development of draft "water waste" rules by the Colorado State Engineer, to assist water commissioners in administering water law in such a way as to conserve agricultural water.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Cabot, Perry, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith, Taylor, Peter Leigh, Kelsea MacIlroy and Brad Udall. "Drivers and Barriers for the Adoption of Irrigation Scheduling and Soil Moisture Monitoring in Irrigated Agriculture. To be submitted to The Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Taylor, Peter Leigh, Kelsea MacIlroy, Perry Cabot, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith and Brad Udall. "Every ditch is different?: Emerging insights from innovative collaboration for agricultural water conservation and security in the Colorado River basin. To be submitted to The Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea, Peter Leigh Taylor, Perry Cabot, Reagan Waskom, MaryLou Smith and Brad Udall. Where Rivers Change Direction: Exploring structural conditions influencing collaboration between agricultural and environmental interests in the Colorado River basin. To be submitted to Agriculture and Human Values.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Castle, Anne, MaryLou Smith, John Stulp, Brad Udall, and Reagan Waskom. Where Now with Alternative Transfer Methods  ATMs  in Colorado? CWI Special Report No. 31 (April 2017). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado Water Institute, Colorado State University.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea. 2017. Conservation for Whom and What? Multi-stakeholder Collaboration around Agricultural Water in the Colorado River Basin. Contribution to Panel Session Feasible Alternatives to Permanent Fallowing in the Colorado River Basin with Brad Udall, Perry Cabot and Paul Kehmeier. Fort Collins, CO: University Council on Water Resources Conference, June 14, 2017.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Cabot, Perry and Dave Kanzer. 2016. Sustaining Irrigated Agriculture in the Lower Gunnison River Basin Using Efficiency and Economics. Fort Collins, CO: USCID Conference, October 13, 2016.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea (presenter) and Peter Leigh Taylor. 2016. Beyond Water Wrangling: Collaborative Sharing for Agriculture and Environment in the Colorado River Basin. Houghton, MI: 22nd International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM), June 25, 2016.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Akhbari, Masih and MaryLou Smith. 2016. Case Studies Outlining Challenges and Opportunities for Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin. CWI Special Report No. 27 (June 2016). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado Water Institute, Colorado State University.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Waskom, Reagan and MaryLou Smith. 2016. Use it or Lose it in Colorado Water Law: Understanding Conservation Concerns. p.1 in The Water Report #147 (May 15, 2016). Eugene, OR.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Waskom, Reagan, Kevin Rein, Dick Wolfe and MaryLou Smith. 2016. How Diversion and Beneficial Use of Water Affect the Value and Measure of a Water Right Is Use It or Lose It an Absolute? CWI Special Report No. 25 (February 2016). Fort Collins, CO: Colorado Water Institute, Colorado State University.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Peter Leigh Taylor. 2016. Everybody has their own idea of paradise: Multistakeholder Cooperation for Environmental Flows on the Upper Colorado River. Keynote address to the Colorado Water Officials' Annual Conference, Lakewood, Colorado, September 29, 2016.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Ahkbari, Masih. 2015. Saving Agricultural Water in the Colorado River Basin: Drivers and Challenges. Denver, CO: American Water Resources Association Annual Water Resources Conference, November 19, 2015.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea. 2015. Can Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin Help Meet the Gap? Denver, CO: American Water Resources Association Annual Water Resources Conference, November 19, 2015.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Cabot, Perry. 2015. Technical Challenges In Agricultural Water Conservation. Boulder, CO: Getches-Wilkinson Center - Martz Summer Conference, June 11, 2015.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Smith, MaryLou. 2015. Innovations in Engaging Stakeholders in Water Resources Research in the Colorado River Basin. Contribution to Panel Session Innovations in Engaging Stakeholders in Water Resources Research with Kelly Mott Lacroix, Allyson Beall King and Mark Solomon. Denver, CO: American Water Resources Association Annual Water Resources Conference, November 19, 2015.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Smith, MaryLou. 2015. Irrigation Efficiencies and Agricultural Water Conservation: A View from the Lower Gunnison River Basin of the Colorado River in Colorado. Long Beach, CA: ASABE/IA Irrigation Symposium: Emerging Technologies for Sustainable Irrigation, November 10-12, 2015.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Smith, MaryLou. 2015. "Ag Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin--Who/What/Why/When/How." Salt Lake City, UT: Western Water Conference 2015: Water Management Strategies for Addressing Long-term Drought and Climate Uncertainty, October 28-29, 2015.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Plombon, Elizabeth, Julie Kallenberger, Reagan WPaskom, and MaryLou Smith. Colorado River Basin Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse: An Innovative Web-Based Project and Communities of Practice. pp. 13-16 in Rural Connections June 2015. Logan, UT: Western Rural Development Center.
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea. 2016. Sociology & Water Law in Colorado. Guest Lecture in Political Sociology undergraduate course, Colorado State University  Pueblo, Fall 2016.
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2015 Citation: Cabot, Perry. 2015. Practical Crop Production Irrigation Practices. Guest Lecture in AGRS 100 Course at Western Colorado Community College. Delta, CO: October 17, 2015.
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: MacIlroy, Kelsea. 2015. "From Vine to Wine on Tour in Palisade, Colorado." Colorado Foundation for Water Education. Posted at https://blog.yourwatercolorado.org/2015/09/14/from-vine-to-wine-on-tour-in-palisade-colorado/, September 14.
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2017 Citation: Smith, MaryLou. 2017. TBA. Horfield, Bristol, England: Scientia - Science Diffusion. (In Progress  to be released December 2017).

Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16

Outputs
Target Audience:This year we expanded our target audience to bring into the mix key water policy leaders in order to improve understanding between them and ag producers who are being asked to participate in "water sharing" arrangements. This has been an important step in our project as we attempt to increase ag producer interest in such arrangements. Ag irrigators have become more vocal and more experienced at presenting their ideas to policy leaders, and policy leaders have responded well to the ideas brought forth by these producers. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In our first two years of the project, we gave graduate students the opportunity to learn how to facilitate collaborative processes and to convene a series of dialogues between ag and environmental students on water topics. Not only did the graduate students benefit professionally but the undergraduates gained appreciation for points of view other than their own, especially related to complex water policy issues. This third year we wanted to extend this understanding about collaboration in water issues, specific to agricultural water conservation but more generally to the need of collaboration in western water policy, to an important subset of stakeholders in the Colorado River basin, Latinos. Building on the example of a group called Nuestro Rio, formed to interest young Latinos in Colorado River Basin issues, we set about to engage Latino college students at Colorado State University in experiential learning related to water issues. Specifically, we wanted to give them an understanding of ag/urban/environmental water conflict and how ag water sustainability can be accomplished through education and collaboration. Cooperating with two other departments at CSU we offered a Colorado Water Sustainability Fellows opportunity to eight students accepted into a pilot one semester, one credit class. Invited by Jorge Figueroa from Western Resource Advocates, students participated in a multi-generational all day symposium in Denver on the topic of how Latinos can become engaged in responding sustainably to climate change, including water shortage issues. They subsequently are developing ideas for projects to be launched second semester to bring Colorado River Basin water issues to a wider range of Latinos. We are working with those developing a new National Western Center in Denver and with Denver Water to place our eight students in paid summer internships introducing elementary and high school students in the affected communities to future careers in water. In addition, we are working with a University of Colorado undergraduate as he conducts an honors research project on "Irrigation Efficiency Improvements to Provide Water for the Environment and Urban Communities." Key to the success of his research is our assistance helping him connect with key agricultural producers and ag water managers for interviews to help him better understand the practicalities of the relationship between irrigation efficiency improvements and ag water conservation. Also, several members of our project team participated in a Colorado Foundation for Water Education webinar entitled "Managing the Colorado River in the 21st Century" in April 2016. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?One of the most important ways we continue to disseminate information about ag water conservation is through our Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse website and our newly added Colorado River Basin Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse. Bi-monthly newsletters and additions to a library of resources keep our readers current on what's happening in the field of ag water conservation. Our project website, Moving Forward on Ag Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin, is a more targeted source of information about the results we are achieving through this project. Most of our efforts disseminating results has been undertaken hand in hand with engaging voices in our work, so that we are not so much disseminating as engaging. An example is our meeting with members of the Ten Tribe Partnership about our project to garner their participation in our ag producer/policy leader workshops on alternatives to permanent fallowing of ag land and water. We met with them while attending the Colorado River Water Users Association (CRWUA) Conference in Las Vegas, NV in December 2015. A number of presentations have led to improved dialogue about ag water conservations issues. Some of those presentations include: Multi-stakeholder Cooperation for Environmental Flows on the Upper Colorado River" at the Poudre River Forum in Fort Collins, Colorado in February 2016 by Peter Leigh Taylor; Kelsea MacIlroy's presentation of a paper co-authored with Peter Leigh Taylor, entitled "Beyond Water Wrangling: Collaborative Water Sharing for Agriculture & Environment in the Colorado River Basin" at the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, in Houghton, MI, June 22-25, 2016; a presentation by Kelsea MacIlroy and Peter Leigh Taylor in September 2016 at the Colorado Water Official's Association annual meeting on work related to environmental flows on the Upper Colorado River as a part of ag/environmental cooperation; participation as discussants of ag water conservation policy in a public presentation by Deputy Secretary of the Interior Michael Connor in March 2016 at Colorado State University entitled "Reflections on Eight Years as the Water Leader for the U.S. Department of the Interior"; a December 2015 Long Beach, California presentation to joint education session of American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and the Irrigation Association by MaryLou Smith titled "Irrigation Efficiencies and Agricultural Water Conservation--a View from the Lower Gunnison Basin of the Colorado River"; October 2015 Salt Lake City Presentation at USDA Multistate Groups W3190 and WERA 1020 Conference Water Management Strategies for Addressing Long Term Drought and Climate Uncertainty: presentation by MaryLou Smith entitled "Ag Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin--Who/What/Why/When/How"; January 2016 Colorado Water Congress Panel facilitated by Reagan Waskom titled "Use it or Lose It--Myth or Reality?"; Three separate presentations at the American Water Resources Association conference in Denver, October, 2015, titled "Can Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin Help Meet the Gap?" by Kelsea MacIlroy, "Saving Agricultural Water in the Colorado River Basin: Drivers and Challenges" by Masih Ahkbari, "Innovations in Engaging Stakeholders in Water Resources Research in the Colorado River Basin" by MaryLou Smith; December 2015 Colorado Ag Water Alliance panel facilitated by Reagan Waskom titled "Use it or Lose It--Myth or Reality?". In addition to these presentations we presented results of our work and engaged ag producers in dialogue about ag water conservation at an annual Soil Health meeting in Delta Colorado sponsored by the Delta and Shavano Conservation Districts, and we facilitated community dialogue following a viewing of Watershed by Robert Redford--a film about challenges facing the Colorado River, including ag/urban/environmental cooperation strategies. We have written extensively about our project findings including three articles in a 2015 special edition of Colorado Water on Ag Water Conservation titled "Testing a 'Why/What How' Agricultural Water Management Decision Tool in the Colorado River Basin" by MaryLou Smith, "Demonstrating Benefits of Improved Irrigation Efficiency in the Colorado River Basin" by Perry Cabot, and "Uncovering Barriers and Disincentives as well as Opportunities for Effective Conservation Collaboration in the Colorado River Basin" by Peter Leigh Taylor and Kelsea MacIlroy. Two Colorado Water Institute Special Reports were published in 2016: "Case Studies Outlining Challenges and Opportunities for Agricultural Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin" by Masih Ahkbari and MaryLou Smith and "How Diversion and Beneficial Use of Water Affect the Value and Measure of a Water Right--Is 'Use It or Lose It' an Absolute?" by Reagan Waskom, Kevin Rein, Dick Wolfe, and MaryLou Smith. The western water policy publication Water Report published a lead article in the fall of 2015 by the same title, "How Diversion and Beneficial Use of Water Affect the Value and Measure of a Water Right--Is 'Use It or Lose It' an Absolute?" by Reagan Waskom and MaryLou Smith. Additional articles include "The Future of Ag Water Markets: Opportunities for Innovation in the Stream Management Plan Process" in fall of 2016 issue of Colorado Water by Spencer Williams and MaryLou Smith; and a late 2015 Rural Connections Article by Elizabeth Plombon titled "Colorado River Basin Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse--An Innovative Web-Based Project." The Colorado Foundation for Water Education included an article by Kelsea MacIlroy in their Your Colorado WaterBlog titled "From Vine to Wine On Tour in Palisade, Colorado--Managing Water for Multiple Needs and Irrigation Efficiency and Local Economy." Kelsea McIlroy received in August 2016 a highly competitive Arkansas River Basin Water Forum scholarship based on her dissertation research for this project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will be convening a Lower Colorado River Basin workshop in Phoenix, Arizona, in March 2017, a lower basin counterpart to the Upper Basin workshop discussed above which we convened in Grand Junction Colorado. Key water policy leaders will meet with ag producers to discuss alternatives to permanent fallowing of ag land and water through alternative transfer methods such as rotational fallowing, crop switching, deficit or limited irrigation, and irrigation efficiency improvements. We will work with the National Young Farmers Coalition to produce fact sheets about ag water law and policy that affect young farmers in Colorado and the Colorado River Basin. We will prepare a suite of articles featuring various aspects of our research project for submission to journals in diverse fields our research has covered, such as sociology, participant engaged research, experiential learning, and soil and crop sciences. In addition, we have arranged to work with a team of writers and graphic designers from Scientia (http://www.scientiapublications.com/) to create a four page article with appeal to a layperson audience. We will be taking our results from ag producer/policy expert workshops to a variety of venues for consideration of policy to enable action on programs and projects for ag producers and their water management organizations to make multi-benefit deals with other sectors to meet urban growth and climate change induced needs for additional water supplies. We will continue to work with No Chico Brush to demonstrate on test plots the benefits of irrigation efficiency on the west slope of Colorado.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: The goal of collaborative work with the No Chico Brush (NCB) farmer-led advocacy group is to conduct local evaluations of various approaches for conserving ag water through improving infrastructure at the field scale. The agenda for NCB has been to quantify and demonstrate irrigation efficiencies at farm-scales through instrumented water budgeting, having secured additional state funding for these evaluations. Instrumented field sites include comparisons of yields and water use for: 1) yellow onion yields irrigated by furrow versus drip irrigation in Delta, CO; 2) field corn irrigated by furrow versus overhead sprinkler (pivot, linear move) irrigation systems in Delta, CO; 3) alfalfa irrigated by furrow versus sprinkler (pivot) irrigation systems in Delta, CO; 4) grass hay pasture irrigated by furrow versus sprinkler (pivot) in Hotchkiss, CO, and; 5) baseline monitoring of a field after transition from furrow to a "big gun" sprinkler system in Montrose, CO. Some general observations are possible. Firstly, the results are in agreement with the conventional wisdom that furrow irrigation systems are less efficient at field-scale application of water, as compared with improved systems such as sprinkler and drip. Producers in the areas of the Western Slope and particularly the Uncompahgre Valley do however, experience challenges implementing irrigation systems with slower water delivery on clay, clay loam and silty clay loam soils that are common to the area. Secondly, for those that have developed expertise with more advanced irrigation systems, it is evident that yields are improved, as compared with furrow in the case of onion, corn and hay crops observed in these evaluations. Thirdly, producers may still be able to reduce their irrigation water application rates, to apply water more synchronously with the capacity of soils to infiltrate and hold water. The project includes a demonstration and deployment of moisture sensing systems, and producers have been shown that longer drying times and shorter irrigation runs may be sufficient to garner similar results, especially in furrow-irrigated systems. Nevertheless, the relatively low profitability versus diligent effort required to practice careful irrigation scheduling, especially on alfalfa (3 cuttings) and hay (1 cutting) fields may be a hindrance to advanced efforts for agricultural water conservation. On the other hand, younger producers or those managing large and/or decentralized farms are more interested in advance irrigation infrastructure, particularly for labor and time savings. Objective 2: This year, Peter Taylor and Kelsea MacIlroy built on their review in 2015 of technical and academic agricultural water conservation literature in the Colorado River Basin and the western United States to carry out and complete field research for a comparative study of experiences with collaboration for agricultural water conservation. Six in-depth cases studies explore collaboration among irrigators, municipal suppliers, federal agencies and environmental organizations to conserve water that can be dedicated to multiple uses. Case studies include: In Colorado, 1) the Grand Valley Water Users' Association's collaboration with federal agencies and other stakeholders for conservation and efficiency benefitting endangered fish species; 2) development in Colorado's southwestern region of the "Super Ditch" to manage temporary leasing of agricultural water for municipal use; 3) the Colorado Water Trust's McKinley Ditch project to generate water from split season irrigation agreements and delivery efficiency improvements for instream flows. In Arizona, 4) the Yuma Mesa Irrigation and Drainage District-Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District pilot fallowing program to generate saved system water for Lake Mead; 5) The Nature Conservancy's work with local farmers on the Diamond S Ditch and elsewhere on the Verde River to improve environmental flows. In California, 6) the Palo Verde Irrigation District's fallowing program in collaboration with the Metropolitan Water District. From interviews and field visits to these collaborative experiences, we have sought to discover what brought diverse groups together around agricultural water conservation, how they surmount or seek to surmount conservation's formidable obstacles and what lessons from their experiences could be useful elsewhere in the Basin. Participants in these six collaborative experiences are implementing a range of fallowing, market leasing, shared infrastructure investment and other mechanisms to conserve agricultural water that can then be used for multiple uses while continuing to benefit irrigators. As of late summer of 2016, Taylor and MacIlroy have completed transcription of fifty-one interviews with more than sixty collaborative experience participants and have begun coding, indexing and analysis of field data. Preliminary analysis of the data suggests that relative success of these collaborations has been closely tied with hydrological factors that favor non-zero sum multiple use arrangements; new and existing opportunities in water law for collaboration around agricultural water conservation; collaborative approaches that share risks and costs fairly; and effective efforts to develop common or compatible ground among varying ways in which conservation and efficiency are defined and implemented by diverse water interest groups. The findings and recommendations from comparative analysis of these case studies will written up in fall of 2016 in a project report and in manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals in spring of 2017. Objective 3: This year our primary contribution to breaking down obstacles to adoption of ag water conservation was tackling the issue of "use is or lose it." We convened water lawyers, conservation groups, agricultural groups and others to gain a comprehensive understanding of what is fact and what is myth in regard to concern that conserving ag water could lead to losing one's water right. Our resulting Colorado Water Institute Special Paper 25 was the subject of newspaper articles and dialogue throughout the state and is being reviewed by the legislature. With the Colorado Ag Water Alliance, we convened ag producers to further their understanding of ag water conservation opportunities to reduce the "buy and dry" of agricultural land and water. We facilitated an upper basin states meeting of ag producers participating in the 2016 BOR Systems Conservation Program to determine successes/failures of pilot projects. With Walton Family Foundation, we convened an Upper Colorado River Basin workshop of 50 key water leaders to consider "alternative transfer methods"--rotational fallowing, deficit irrigation, crop switching, and irrigation efficiency improvements. Participants included ag producers, and others such as Bureau of Reclamation, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Colorado Farm Bureau, Ten Tribes Partnership, Central Utah Water Conservation District, Wyoming SEO, The Nature Conservancy, Colorado River Water Conservation District, Upper Colorado River Commission, Western States Water Council, Ditch and Reservoir Company Alliance, Denver Water, and others. A dozen participants developed and presented specific policy proposals to facilitate adoption of alternative transfer methods to reduce permanent fallowing of ag land and water to meet urban water needs. Proposals were vetted by the full group and are being written into a Colorado Water Institute Special Report to present to Upper Colorado River Basin groups and the Colorado Water Conservation Board for action. One key proposal vetted was the development of a marketing/educational/transaction venue/organization to facilitate standardization, transparency, and brokering assistance of multiple benefit ag water transfers.

Publications

Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/15

Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audiences Reached Our primary target audience is Colorado River Basin agricultural producers; those who manage water, such as irrigation districts and companies, conservancy districts, conservation districts; and those who advise them, such as water rights attorneys. Another target audience is policy makers who make decisions that affect agricultural water, and regional water leaders whose views affect those policy decisions--not just those from the agricultural sector, but those from urban and environmental sectors. In our first two years of the project, we have been successful reaching individuals who fall into each of these categories. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Opportunities for Training, Professional Development As a follow up to the graduate student seminar we staged last year titled "How to Facilitate Water Policy Stakeholder Collaboration," two of the participating graduate students worked with us to design a "water conflict" seminar series. We hosted three sets of dialogs for students to discuss water conflicts, with a total of 25 students participating. We recruited students from diverse academic backgrounds such as soil and crop sciences, environmental majors, sociologists, and others to participate. In the dialogs, students first talk about conflict, values, and how to have conversation about tough topics. Then, we read water issue articles and case studies and practice having conversations with others who think differently. Students have reported learning information in the Water Dialogs that they do not learn in the typical college classroom. Many were prepared to come to a debate. They were surprised with how with some facilitation they were able to have a civil conversation about water. One student wrote: "I learned that there are not 'bad guys' when it comes to water usage. People have created normal ways of doing things (consuming water personally, as a farmer etc.) that have been seen as okay for so long that we have to change way of life now rather than continuing to fight over who has the 'right' to do something." When asked what they would take away from the experience students wrote: "Consult someone with an opposite mindset from you before making a difficult decision. Look past money, and look at value satisfaction. Be willing to make sacrifices and listen" and "I would like to be actively involved in my ditch company board. I will re-evaluate how I look at water on our family farm. I want to teach others as I work at CSU Extension for my career." Our graduate student working with us on Objective 3 attended a "Water Diplomats" Conference hosted by the One World One Water Center at Metropolitan State University in which she learned about water issues from a wide diversity of perspectives and was able to share what she is learning from our project on Ag Water Conservation in the Colorado River Basin. Subsequently, she and three other CSU students hosted a presentation followed by a panel discussion to educate others about the difficult tradeoffs in western water issues, including the motivations and obstacles for agricultural water conservation. We had the phenomenal opportunity to work with students chosen for a Colorado Youth Summit specific to the topic of the Poudre River and its competing users and interests. We worked with forty-five students ages 13-18 in two separate groups. We used a 'real world' scenario involving the City of Thornton purchasing water from the Water Supply and Storage Company, one of the largest irrigation companies in the Cache la Poudre River Basin. Students heard about the issues of transferring water from agriculture to urban use and then had the opportunity to play roles of policy makers weighing in on the issue of how best to transfer the water while keeping in mind the needs of the various interests. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dissemination of Results We continue to discuss and give presentations about our project in meetings throughout the state and throughout the basin, including the Colorado River Water Users Association annual conference, and conferences noted above. Again this year, attendance and a poster at the USDA/NIFA July 2015 Project Directors Meeting Websites, as described above What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Plan for Accomplishing Goals Next Reporting Period? As we enter our third year of the project, we anticipate bringing to closure the deliverables we promised. However, in some areas, such as the "use it or lose it" dialogue and the work helping agricultural producers better understand their alternatives for conserving water, the obstacles they face, and strategies they can use to overcome the obstacles, we anticipate continuing our work, hopefully through subsequent grants from a variety of sources. This work is too important to stop now. And, this work is too complex to complete in just the three years of this project. This third year, our work with No Chico Brush and other agricultural organizations with whom they are in conflict will give us the opportunity to fine tune our decision support matrix and use it throughout the state to increase agricultural producers' willingness to try out ag water conservation from whatever perspective best meets their needs. We will undertake agricultural producer stakeholder interactions in the Lower Basin, most likely in Arizona, testing with them our decision support matrix tool as well. In both the Upper and Lower Basin, we have the opportunity to dovetail the work we are doing with workshops the Walton Family Foundation is undertaking to bring agricultural producers and researchers together to discuss a synopsis of what has been done in the arena of alternatives to permanent fallowing of agriculture to meet future needs for water in the Colorado River Basin. For Objective 2, we will document and publicize our progress these past two years identifying the various obstacles (social, economic, political, legal) that stand in the way of water conservation as well as opportunities highlighted by current collaborative efforts to overcome those barriers, based on our extensive interviews we will soon be completing in both the Upper and Lower Basins. We will complement the availability of our case studies on our website by publishing them in a special paper by Colorado Water Institute. We will continue to populate our project website and our Colorado River Basin Ag Water Clearinghouse website with timely articles and papers, and launch a campaign to increase our readership. We will identify and reach out to university professors with whom to share these case studies, and possibly our Students in Dialogue about water syllabus, as a part of their curricula. We will continue to offer our Students in Dialogue about Water series at Colorado State University, offer it in conjunction with the Water Center at Mesa State University, and consider entering into conversation with colleagues at other Colorado River Basin universities to offer it at their locales. In the coming year we will publish a special paper of the case studies and an FAQ Fact Sheet on the use it or lose it issue. Our work to evaluate improved irrigation technology will be refined to add another year of comparisons between furrow-irrigated fields versus field irrigated with newer tools (e.g., sprinkler pivot, drip and big-gun). The expansive deployment of wireless systems to monitor soil moisture will be showcased more widely, to garner interest from producers. This final year of our formal project we will especially encourage producers to not only watch their soil moisture, but to react accordingly with more constant knowledge of their soil water content. The systems designed by Irrometer require monthly subscriptions, so the extent to which producers choose to subscribe to the program will be viewed as a measure of success. We will work within the RCPP program to advise efforts that aim to help producers decide if newer irrigation tools are right for them.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We are close to publishing the compilation of more than 60 case studies that exemplify how water from the Colorado River and its major tributaries has been diverted and stored over time for agricultural use; how such water use has been changed to meet new goals concurrent with agricultural use, such as protection of endangered species and transfer for urban use; and programs and policies that have been enacted to optimize use of agricultural water and ameliorate negatives.Included with the case studies as portrayed on our website is an At a Glance matrix that assists in categorizing each case as to its benefits to Ag, urban, and environmental goals.We have continued our partnership with a grass-roots network of agricultural producer/water manager/policy makers group called No Chico Brush Colorado, to help them show the broader ag producer community that adopting new irrigation technologies can save water while increasing yield. We designed and supervised instrumentation of and data gathering from four test sites that have shown positive results to be reported to the No Chico Brush membership and subsequently to be used as we work with them to strategize how to take that message to their broader audience. The technology being evaluated includes state-of-the-art telemetric information delivery designed by the Irrometer Company. No Chico Brush's efforts to promote this technology have been included in a large RCPP project funded by the USDA. A greater number of farmers have expressed interest in these new tools, partially as a result of their promotional efforts.We completed most of the interviews and field visits for five of six case studies of multi-stakeholder collaboration for conservation of agricultural water for multiple uses. Field visits were made to collaboration sites in the Grand Valley on the Upper Colorado River and the Arkansas River (Super Ditch) in Colorado and the Yuma Mesa and Verde River in Arizona. Thirty-seven in depth interviews with 43 individuals (including group interviews) were done, almost entirely representing face-to-face discussions with irrigators, agricultural water managers, federal and state water agency officials, environmentalists, community leaders, water attorneys and academic researchers. Transcription and coding for analysis of interview and secondary source data has begun.We produced a bibliography of articles about water conservation in the western United States and have completed an extensive literature review to help us uncover and catalogue legal, cultural, economic and other barriers as well as potential opportunities for agricultural water conservation. Drawing on this literature review, we developed a research design involving field visits and interviews, for six case studies of multi-stakeholder cooperation for agricultural water conservation in Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River.We continued to stage and attend meetings that allow us to investigate these barriers and encourage others to investigate them. Several members of our team participated in Colorado Water Congress-sponsored webinars on the legal, technical and political contexts of Transbasin Diversions and Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in January and July of 2015, respectively.Sociologists Taylor and MacIlroy participated in a one day Colorado Foundation for Water Education (CFWE) educational tour of the irrigation and related orchard production systems in the Grand Valley. Sociologist MacIlroy participated in a CFWE-sponsored two day educational tour dedicated to irrigation efficiency issues on Colorado's East Slope.Sociologist Taylor represented the project team at the USDA/NIFA Project Director's Meeting in Greensboro, NC and presented a poster related to the project's research. Having chosen the group No Chico Brush as our Upper Basin stakeholder group to work with in our Objective 3, we continue to help them frame their Ag water conservation message to their constituency--those they are hoping to persuade to adopt irrigation efficiency practices, especially through participation in the cost sharing made available through their RCPP grant. One issue in working with this group is that the term Ag water conservation is an anathema to them, given that the term, at least in Colorado, connotes consumptive use water that is taken out of agriculture for other purposes, such as urban or "system conservation" use such as that promoted by the Colorado River System Conservation program proponents. The group is sometimes not taken seriously by others in the state because of misunderstanding of their goal--to use every drop of Ag water available to them--not transfer any of it--but show that they are using every drop the most efficient way possible so as to reduce outside pressure to "share" it.Our work with No Chico Brush has led to our developing the "beta" version of our decision support matrix. We are currently testing it with No Chico Brush and hope to soon take it out to a broader group in Colorado including those members of important agricultural groups such as Colorado Farm Bureau and Colorado Cattlemen, whose members have supported the consumptive use transfers No Chico Brush opposes. Our intent is to broaden understanding of various tools available for Ag producers to make improvements in how they use their agricultural water to meet different objectives, and to help those who come at it from different angles to gain respect for other approaches than their own. Helping agricultural producers understand one another on these issues, we believe, will help agricultural leaders bring more agricultural irrigators into the fold of adopting agricultural irrigation efficiencies and agricultural water conservation.Next, we will take this work to the Lower Basin. We are currently brainstorming with colleagues at University of Arizona the possibilities for convening an agricultural producer stakeholder group with whom to work in a similar manner as that we are doing in the Upper Basin with No Chico Brush.Our basic website for this project, www.crbagwater.colostate.edu is an extension of the website we earlier developed for our underlying USDA/NIFA project Addressing Ag Water in the Colorado River Basin. In addition to continuing to populate this website with updates about our project accomplishments and educational outreach materials, we this year launched a linking website, Colorado River Basin Ag Water Clearinghouse, dedicated specifically to the Colorado River Basin, www.crbawcc.colostate.edu This website complements and makes prominent links to our previously funded Ag Water Clearinghouse website (agwaterconservation.colostate.edu). As part of our project's objective four, we are keeping both the Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse website and the more focused Colorado River Ag Water Conservation Clearinghouse website up to date with current news articles, published articles and reports, and additional tools and resources related to agricultural water conservation. An e-newsletter is sent out twice monthly to keep subscribers up to date on new materials and news added to these clearinghouse websites. Next, we anticipate a media push to increase readership.We have given presentations and delivered papers on the subject of our work this year in a number of venues, including the Western Water Conference co-sponsored by Western States Water Council, the internationally attended Irrigation Association Trade Show and Educational Program, the Colorado River Symposium and the Colorado River Water Users' Association annual meeting. In conjunction with No Chico Brush, we presented results of our work and engaged Ag producers in conversation about Ag water conservation at several regional events sponsored by the Delta and Shavano Conservation Districts, along with the annual Soil Health Meeting in Delta, CO.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Irrigation Efficiencies and Agricultural Water Conservation: A View from the Lower Gunnison River Basin of the Colorado River in Colorado ASABE-IA Conference 2015 MaryLou Smith and Dr. Perry Cabot
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Presentation to Colorado River Water Users Association by Reagan Waskom
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Presentation to Colorado River Symposium by Reagan Waskom
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Why/What/How Agricultural Water Conservation Decision Tool presented by MaryLou Smith at Western Water Conference by Western States Water Council

Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Our primary target audience is Colorado River Basin agricultural producers; those who manage ag water, such as irrigation districts and companies, conservancy districts, conservation districts; and those who advise them, such as water rights attorneys. Another target audience is policy makers who make decisions that affect agricultural water, and regional water leaders whose views affect those policy decisions—not just those from the agricultural sector, but those from urban and environmental sectors. In our first year of the project, we have been successful reaching individuals who fall into each of these categories. Changes/Problems: One of our co-principal investigators suffered a major accident this year and has had to reduce his level of participation in the project. He is contributing as an advisor, but putting in fewer hours than we anticipated. Much of the research we had anticipated he would conduct has been taken on by two other engineers. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We participated in a field trip to the Little Snake Valley of Wyoming to learn about an ag/environmental cooperative effort there, and obstacles embraced and overcome. We participated in a webinar regarding controversial ag water conservation legislation that passed in the Colorado Assembly in 2014 but was vetoed by the governor because of ag sector unrest about issues they believed to be unresolved. We designed and conducted a graduate student seminar titled “How to Facilitate Water Policy Stakeholder Collaboration” the goal of which was to introduce facilitation techniques to five graduate studentsso they could help usengage ag producers to develop action tools to overcome obstacles to ag water conservation. 12 hours of instruction included facilitation techniques, overview of CRB ag water issues, dialogue with practicing water resource conflict specilaists, and role playing. Each student read a book related to the topic and led the class in discussion about it. We attended a conference on the west slope of Colorado titled "Growing the River: Is It All About Ag?" where we gained insight into a controversial initiative to move conserved ag water from the Upper Basin to Lakes Mead and Powell to counter operations issues. Conference gave us multiple perspectives on legal, economic, and cultural obstacles to such transfer of conserved agricultural water. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Announcement of our project with details about what we are trying to accomplish at a variety of agricultural and water leader meetings Poster at the USDA/NIFA October 2014 Directors Meeting Email announcement of our project to a mailing list of approximately 500 throughout the Colorado River Basin Website, as described above What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Now that we are in our second year of the project, we believe we have a much better picture of the challenges we face in accomplishing our goals. Namely, before we can engage ag producers in creating new tools, integrated decision processes, and a plan of action for overcoming barriers to ag water conservation, we have to be able to work with appropriate experts on the cutting edge of this question to categorize clearly the numerous ways ag water conservation is defined and pursued. Without clear understanding of these distinct approaches, each of which has its own set of barriers to acceptance, we will have insufficient credibility to work with ag producers to tackle the barriers. We are finding that an underlying question that must be first addressed is “what kind of ag water conservation are ag producers willing to engage in and for what purposes?” We have been able to narrow in on three primary motives for ag water conservation: To make ag more secure in its water rights and to increase “crop per drop” for their own profitability (and prove to outside sectors that they are using ag water efficiently so as to reduce pressure on themselves to share it) To manage ag water in a way as to have more environmental benefit, such as increased flows for endangered species, or improved water quality To free up ag water for transfer for other uses such as urban We are finding that many of the ag producers we are getting to know are adamantly opposed to the third motive. Others are opposed to such transfers, but believe ag has to participate in them because if ag doesn’t produce some water for transfer it may become vulnerable to a “takings” at some point, since they point out that water law can be changed under certain political conditions. We are committed to tackle these complexities head on, and contribute to clarifying them so that meaningful dialogue can lead to ag producers making choices that are best for their particular circumstance. Our work with No Chico Brush will continue and will give us tremendous opportunities for not only understanding their beliefs and values but also the beliefs and values of the groups with whom they are currently in conflict. (We will be facilitating dialogue between No Chico Brush and representatives from these groups in November, 2014.) Our work with No Chico Brush will be made possible in part from funding the group recently received to continue efficiency comparisons. The Colorado Water Conservation Board has funded this work under a $173,080 grant titled: “A farmer-led initiative to quantify and demonstrate irrigation efficiencies at farm-scales through instrumented water budgeting.” We will make considerable progress this year identifying the various obstacles (social, economic, political, legal) that stand in the way of ag water conservation as well as efforts to overcome those barriers, as we conduct up to 60 planned interviews across the basin, both Upper and Lower. Once we have a firm foundation for our work with No Chico Brush in the Upper Basin, we will launch dialogue efforts in the Lower Basin. At this point we are talking to various colleagues and advisors in the Lower Basin to get their ideas for such efforts. We will complete the fine-tuning of our case studies and make them available on our website in summary form, with links to more information about each. We will begin identifying university professors with whom to share these case studies, as a part of their curricula. We will undertake further facilitation training of the graduate students who participated in the seminar series we designed and taught: “How to Facilitate Water Policy Stakeholder Collaboration.” We anticipate working with the Colorado River Water Conservation District to produce a map that will showcase the history of ag water use and change on the Colorado River, from the earliest diversions by native groups such as the Hohokam to the most recent ag/urban water transfer deals. These cases will be represented temporally and geographically and will contain links to additional information about each. We believe this tool will be very useful as we disseminate results of our work to a broader audience.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Our progress this first year toward accomplishing these goals includes: Show how conservation is technologically possible We drafted and are fine-tuning 75 case studies that exemplify how water from the Colorado River and its major tributaries has been diverted and stored over time for agricultural use; how such water use has been changed to meet new goals concurrent with agricultural use, such as protection of endangered species and transfer for urban use; and programs and policies that have been enacted to optimize use of agricultural water and ameliorate negatives, such as salinity and groundwater overdraw. Included with the case studies is an Ag Water At a Glance matrix that assists in categorizing each case as to its benefits to ag, urban, and environmental goals.We are cooperating with a grass-roots agricultural producer group called No Chico Brush, located in the Lower Gunnison Valley of Colorado, to help them show that adopting more efficient irrigation methodologies can save water while increasing yield. We designed and supervised instrumentation of and data gathering from test plots that have shown positive results. Bring into sharp focus the legal, cultural, and economic barriers We produced a bibliography of articles about ag water conservation in the western United States and have begun an extensive literature review to help us uncover and catalogue legal, cultural, economic and other barriers as well as potential opportunities for agricultural water conservation. We are developing a protocol for a series of interviews we will conduct in the next reporting period with selected experts, ag producers, water managers, and other stakeholders and will analyze in depth a subset of six case studies of agricultural water conservation partnerships in the Basin. We are building on the initial case studies referred to above in helping to identify and develop these six in depth case studies and related interviews. We have staged a dozen meetings to begin to investigate these barriers. Some of the meetings have been of our internal team, sharing information from our interactions with our targeted audiences, both previous to and as a part of this project. Much of this internal work has been needed to help us identify the significant inconsistencies among the various players and in the literature regarded how ag water conservation is defined and implemented. Some of the meetings have been with advisors from the agricultural community, including water attorneys, farmers and ranchers, irrigation company managers as well as urban water providers and environmental groups exploring various barriers from their point of view. Of this latter category, a few of these meetings have been formally scheduled meetings, such as those with No Chico Brush. In other cases, we have taken advantage of opportunities to bring up these issues in related contexts, leading to rich information. An example of this kind of meeting is that of the Colorado Ag Water Alliance, in which the subject of whether irrigation improvements can lead to transferrable water or whether only changes in consumptive use can result in such transferrable water. Our team member with legal background has helped us better understand various laws in Colorado River Basin states and how they address these issues. We took a field trip to the Little Snake River in Wyoming where ranchers have worked with government agencies and NGO’s to implement a small storage project in conjunction with environmentally friendly infrastructure work. Bring together ag producers and others to create new tools, integrated decision processes, and a plan of action for overcoming barriers We have gained the cooperation of the group discussed above, No Chico Brush, to undertake with them dialogue about their ag water management goals, obstacles they are encountering, and conflict they are having with other ag groups whose views about ag water conservation differ from theirs. We realize there is confusion and contention about how ag water might be managed under current water law in the Colorado River Basin, in order to take advantage of increased irrigation efficiency. Before we can work with ag producers and others to create new tools and integrated decision processes that could lead to action to overcome barriers, we must keep plowing through this complexity. We have been staging learning sessions with engineers, attorneys and agricultural water managers and others. Education and Outreach Website: www.crbagwater.colostate.edu. To convey information gained from this project, we built on the website we earlier developed for our underlying USDA/NIFA project Addressing Ag Water in the Colorado River Basin and we have prominent links to our previously funded Ag Water Clearinghouse website www.agwaterconservation.colostate.edu . We are populating that website with a section that targets ag water conservation in the Colorado River Basin. We facilitated dialogue of a panel of state water leaders at the Colorado Water Congress on ag water conservation, employing an animation we had created previously to spur discussion. The dialogue helped us identify a number of sociological obstacles to ag water conservation. This animation, titled Good to the Last Drop: One Approach to Ag Water Conservation in Colorado, is on our website.

Publications