K-State team examines effects of water policies
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
When water use policies and practices change, they produce a ripple effect in communities, impacting everything from what types of crops a farmer will grow to how many people will move in or out of a town. That's why Kansas State University is pooling experts from multiple disciplines to understand how these changes affect people in communities that depend on the Ogallala Aquifer in western Kansas.
David Steward, associate professor of civil engineering, leads a team of K-State experts, using a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, that is developing a scientific understanding of how changes in policy and water use practices could sustain the aquifer without jeopardizing the viability of the Kansas towns and people depending on it as an abundant source of water.
The interdisciplinary team is creating tools that can predict the consequences that water policy decisions would have on all aspects of a community, from the viability of the local economy to land use practices. These tools will help policymakers understand how their decisions about the Ogallala Aquifer could play out for people living in communities that depend on the water source.
The team is also employing two cutting-edge programs in their research—the open modeling interface (OpenMI) and the hydrologic information system (HIS). OpenMI was launched in 2005 and K-State, the first research team in an academic field to employ it, uses it to allow the different models in the project to "talk" to one another.
"We are right at the cusp of bringing together data storage capability and modeling through use of OpenMI," Steward said, "and are being recognized internationally in scholarly journals for doing so."
Steward said it used to be a struggle to combine water models with all the different data sources and databases, but use of the HIS program has standardized access to these sources. He organized the first-ever HIS workshop last spring at K-State, hosting researchers and state agency personnel from across Kansas interested to learn how to implement the system.
"Another thing that we're trying to do is develop information that can be used in risk assessment," Steward said. "Some of the policies we will be looking at are rules the state already has in place that could be enforced now. We're trying to understand what the impacts of those are, not just on the water supply, crops and cattle production, but also on people."
The Ogallala Aquifer, which lies underneath southwest Kansas, is one of the world's largest underground sources of fresh water. The water source offsets the region's dry climate and supports irrigated crops, the meat packing industry and the Kansans for whom such agricultural practices are their livelihood and the backbone of their towns' economies.
There are places where the aquifer will not be able to sustain the industries and people now dependent on the water supply. These areas of decline are where the interdisciplinary team of K-State researchers—from agronomy, agricultural economics, political science, sociology and landscape architecture— is focusing its study of the intersection of people and the water supply.
And bringing all of the data together from these entities is Daniel Andresen, associate professor of computing and information science. Using the state's largest academic research supercomputer, K-State's Beocat, Andresen will be able to run policy scenarios and show their outcomes in the various categories.
This project builds on work by K-State's Consortium for Global Research on Water-Based Economies, an interdisciplinary team formed in 2001.
Credit: K-State Media Relations; Impact Newsletter Spring 2010, College of Engineering, Kansas State University
Links: College of Engineering home page