From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Irrigated Agriculture and Water Conservation Description: As irrigation technologies and practices evolve, we talk about what it means for water usage. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-128SP: Irrigated Agriculture: Technologies, Practices, and Implications for Water Scarcity Released: November 2019 [ Background Music ] [ Tim Persons: ] It is important that just saving the water itself, and through the technologies will not necessarily increase the conservation of the water. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the US Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. Irrigated agriculture accounts for more than 40 percent of freshwater use in the United States, and in some areas of the country, demand for freshwater outpaces what is naturally available. With me is Tim Persons, a Managing Director for GAO's Science Technology Assessment and Analytics team, and we're going to talk about a GAO study looking at different irrigation technologies and practices, and how they relate to water scarcity. Thanks for joining me, Tim. [ Tim Persons: ] Thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me on. [ Matt Oldham: ] First off, water scarcity. How important of an issue is this? [ Tim Persons: ] Undoubtedly, a very important issue, especially, you've heard the 'all politics are local' type statement. Water issues are definitely local, so, as you know, the US is a diverse country in terms of its geology, geography, and climate, and regions, and so on. And so, massive amounts of the country, particularly in the West, although we're seeing some drought stress in the Southeast and others, it is not simply a western issue. It is an agricultural issue, but definitely the western states dominate this naturally because it's so arid, it's dry, again, different temperatures and things, and yet there's so many of the western states are in the agricultural economy, and this is very pressing. So, water stress has been felt, to greater or lesser extent, across these various regions, and that's why we needed to do this study. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, what types of technologies and practices does the study cover? [ Tim Persons: ] So, the main focus of this ultimately went down to irrigation and then the various forms of irrigation. Irrigation has been around a while, but the way in which you irrigate. There's the conventional gravity, where you just drip things on there, but there's also more pressure-based systems that spray. Think of, like, a spray nozzle on a spray bottle. The way the water is dispensed may be able to yield greater crop benefit for less resource. So, that's 'more crop per drop,' as the saying goes. So, that's particularly, one particular area, but also, I think the idea of just good practices, in terms of scheduling on those technologies, the when would you do it? And then I think another key area that is more of an enabling technology in this, though, is just a lot of this is being driven by data science, the so-called datafication of things, having better sensors out there, weather information and things, which would inform the scheduling, which would then inform how you do your irrigation and how you apply the water to the crop from an irrigation. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, does that mean we can expect these new technologies or these new practices will lead to more efficient water use? [ Tim Persons: ] So, that's a great point, and one of the things that we've found in this particular study is that, in general, that might sound like an attractive outcome or a logical way of thinking, initially. However, it is important that just saving the water itself, and through the technologies, will not necessarily increase the conservation of the water. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So, it sounds like with these new technologies and practices we're talking about, things like scheduling changes or data-driven sensors, that individuals or farmers may be able to use water more efficiently, but that doesn't necessarily mean there is a net improvement on water scarcity issues. So, Tim, does the study look at the likelihood of farmers adopting some of these new technologies and practices in the interest of using less water or conserving more water? [ Tim Persons: ] It does, and one of the things that we found was that the farmers aren't necessarily pursuing technologies just for the sake of conservation. That is one of the things that policymakers may want to incentivize, if the goal is to recharge or to try to have your cake and eat it, too, from a water perspective, to do that. But conservation, itself, isn't what's driving that. [ Matt Oldham: ] Tim, you had mentioned information that could be helpful for policymakers. Was there anything else in this report that may be helpful for policymakers? [ Tim Persons: ] Sure, I think the two key policy options that we're presenting in this report are that our policymakers could promote various programs or leveraging systems to look at the use of more efficient irrigation technology and practices, and rethink irrigation. The second area was this promotion of this precision ag technologies. There's a tremendous amount of weather data and computational power now available if you had the broadband access, thinking about cloud computing and things as a key resource. You could even compute advanced things and better schedule, better apply the water, but you need more precision ag technologies and more sensors, like soil moisture sensors, and even more refined weather stations to get greater resolution, even down to the farm level. [ Matt Oldham: ] So then, as always, the last question. What is the bottom line of this report? [ Tim Persons: ] I think that this is a two-part thing. I think promoting technologies, promoting water efficiency is good. The promotion also needs to be, the second part of it is included with incentives for actually conserving the water. How do we, again, do the farming better and with less resource and yet still equivalent if not greater outcome, and yet still save the water where it's needed? [ Matt Oldham: ] Tim Persons was talking about a GAO study on the water use implications for different technologies and practices in irrigated agriculture. Thank you for your time, Tim. [ Tim Persons: ] Thanks, Matt. 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