The Ogallala Aquifer Program (OAP) was featured in the December 2017 issue of the Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, a publication of the Universities Council on Water Resources. The issue’s theme is addressing irrigation aquifer depletion in the Ogallala Aquifer, and Dr. Kevin Wagner, the Oklahoma Water Resources Center director and former deputy director of the Texas Water Resources Institute, is the issue editor.
The OAP, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), is a research-education consortium seeking solutions from problems arising from declining water availability from the Ogallala Aquifer in western Kansas and the Texas High Plains. The consortium is led by the ARS laboratories in Bushland and Lubbock, Texas. University partners are Kansas State University, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Service, Texas Tech University and West Texas A&M University.
Wagner notes in his introduction that the special issue examines new technologies, cropping system management practices, decision support tools, incentives and policies to sustain food production, rural communities and ecosystem services in the Ogallala Aquifer region as well as other critical regions.
An overview of the OAP was spotlighted in one article, “Ogallala Aquifer Program: A Catalyst for Research and Education to Sustain the Ogallala Aquifer on the Southern High Plains (2003-2017),” authored by Drs. David Brauer, the OAP manager; Dan Devlin, Wagner, Mike Ballou, Dean Hawkins, and Robert Lascano, all members of the leadership team.
Other articles in the journal are:
- Kansas Trends and Changes in Temperature, Precipitation, Drought, and Frost-Free Days from the 1890s to 2015, X. Lin, J. Harrington, Jr., I. Ciampitti, P. Gowda, D. Brown, and I. Kisekka
- Irrigated Corn Production and Management in the Texas High Plains, Q. Xue, T.H. Marek, W. Xu, and J. Bell
- Crop Water Production Functions of Grain Sorghum and Winter Wheat in Kansas and Texas, J.T. Moberly, R.M. Aiken, X. Lin, A.J. Schlegel, R.L. Baumhardt, and R.C. Schwartz
- Calibration and Validation of CSM-CROPGRO-Cotton Model Using Lysimeter Data in the Texas High Plains, P. Adhikari, P.H. Gowda, G.W. Marek, D.K. Brauer, I. Kisekka, B. Northup, and A. Rocateli
- Understanding Climate-Hydrologic-Human Interactions to Guide Groundwater Model Development for Southern High Plains, V. Uddameri, S. Singaraju, A. Karim, P. Gowda, R. Bailey, and M. Schipanski
- The Economics of Local Enhanced Management Areas in Southwest Kansas, B. Golden and B. Guerrero
- Water Budget Development for SGMA Compliance, Case Study: Ukiah Valley Groundwater Basin, M. Flores Marquez, S. Sandoval-Solis, A.J. DeVicentis, J.P. Ortiz Partida, E. Goharian, B.R. Britos, P.T. Silva Jordan, G.T. McGourty, D.J. Lewis, R.B. Elkins, J.M. Harper
- Aquifer Depletion in the Lower Mississippi River Basin: Challenges and Solutions, M.L. Reba, J.H. Massey, M.A. Adviento-Borbe, D. Leslie, M.A. Yaeger, M. Anders, and J. Farris
For more information on the OAP, visit its website.
