WSP08199

• File Number: 8112.600
• Description: Arkansas White Red Basins Interagency Committee - AWRBIAC -- Reports
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 6/1/1977
• Title: Specific Problem Analysis Summary Report - 1975 National Assessment of Water and Related Land Resources - Part 1 of 2
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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II. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The water and related land problems in the region include
lack of water supply, salinity, organic pollution, flooding,
erosion, and sedimentation. The solution of these problems within
reasonable economic goals while maintaining high quality environ-
ments1 objectives requires careful and thorough planning. The
climate, topography and soils are so varied that successful solu-
tions to problems must be based on local conditions which involve
extreme variations in water quantity and quality and in weather
conditions.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Hi~h Plains Groundwater Irri~ation. There is one large and
severe problem covering portions of Colorado, Kansa~, Nebraska,
New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas and the three Assessment regions--
Missouri, Arkansas-White-Red, and Texss-Gu1f. This in known as the
High Plains Groundwater Irrigation problem where private irrigation
withdrawals in portions of the area exceed recharge rates. This
mining of large aquifers during the pest thirty-five years has created
one of the W9~ld'~ largest irrigated areas and it is still growing.
In 1975, 13,094,000 acres were irrigated and water use was 19,953,000
acre-feet annually.

In the AWR Region the total irrigated area was 4,888,000 acres
in 1975, and the use of water was 8,414,000 acre-feet annually.. A
summary by ASA's, States, and Regions is shown on Table 1.

More than eighty-five percent of the AWR Region's agricultural
earnings result from farming activities in the west~rn plains of
ASA's 1102, 1103, 1105, and 1106, where irrigated croplands and
pastures create large demands for water, principally from groundwater
sources. Surface waters are scarce or highly variable in quantity
from year to year, and high salinity of these waters predominate
during the normal arid or semi-arid periods. Domestic and industrial
users also obtain a significant portion of their supply from ground-
water aquifers which contain potable waters not appreciably affected
by surface flows.

The areal extent of this groundwater irrigation development is
shawn on Plate II. This vast development not only is of significance
to the three regions, but it also is of national significance since
a large part of food exports to foreign countries must be backed up
by .the stability and volume of food production afforded by such

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