WSP12980

• File Number: 8210.140.20.C
• Description: Imperial Irrigation District ‎(IID)‎
• State: CA
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 1/9/1996
• Author: Imperial Irrigation District
• Title: Water Requirements and Availability Sutdy ‎(draft)‎
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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eight years. As presented, this category of land use has increased by approximately 20 percent
over the last eight years.

Recreation also requires a specific amount of land. For the study area of the District, recreation
is confined to several small state and national wildlife refuge/areas and duck clubs. The
combined land use for these areas is approximately 35,000 acres. Over the past eight years this
number has not increased significantly.

III.A.4 Trends for Future Land Use
Recognizing the difficulty of predicting with any sort of accuracy actual land use over the next
50 years, this Chapter will identify and analyze trends leading to a viable land-use scenario. As
with any long-range planning effort, this study should be revisited periodically to update
projected land-use scenarios based on changing trends. This data is essential for establishing
future water requirements.

III.A.4a Agriculture
Agriculture has the potential to expand by approximately 24,500 acres to approximately 490,000
acres, which includes approximately 21,500 acres (see Table III.A.l-l) of fallow land and
approximately 3,000 acres of undeveloped lands that have paid the District's Water Availability
Charge. The economy within the Valley is becoming more diversified. Agriculture, however,
will continue to be the primary industry within the District over the next 50 years. The two
principal factors that will affect the increase or reduction in crop acreage within the District will
be urban growth and the economics of the agriculture market. Two other factors that may
ultimately influence farmed acreage are the continued reduction in agricultural water supplies in
the Central Valley of California and increases in the cost of federal water supplies that are
available to that area. The guaranteed water supplies of the IID, if the price remains competitive,
could result in the relocation of some Central Valley farm operations to the Imperial Valley.
This could result in the development of mesa lands potentially capable of being farmed but not
currently developed. It should be pointed out, however, that lands not currently developed are
generally considered to be marginal with regards to their ability to be farmed profitably

Draft: Subject To Revision 12/21/95

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