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Agriculture Built These High Plains Towns. Now, It Might Run Them Dry

Daily Yonder

Today, the aquifer supports 20% of the nation’s wheat, corn, cotton and cattle production and represents 30% of all water used for irrigation in the United States. Since the mid-20th century, when large-scale irrigation began, water levels in the stretches of the Ogallala underlying Kansas have dropped an average 28.2

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An Ancient Irrigation System May Help Farmers Face Climate Change

Civil Eats

This was the Peoples Ditch, a waterway holding the oldest continuous water right in Colorado. The channel carried water from tributaries of the Rio Grande, high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, down to the fields below.

Ecology 131