Groundwater irrigation has been regarded as critical to the sustenance of agricultural production in the U.S. Midwest. Due to continuous extraction, many agricultural regions with heavy reliance on groundwater irrigation have witnessed substantial drawdown or depletion of groundwater reservoirs. To develop effective coping strategies, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of the groundwater system and its interaction with groundwater users and future challenges such as climate variability and change.  Thus, this project developed a socio-hydrological modeling framework for examining the sustainability of aquifers in irrigation agricultural landscapes and evaluating potential solutions to improve resilience in a changing climate 

The overarching goal of this project was to gain an improved understanding of groundwater sustainability in a changing climate from a coupled human-nature system perspective. The specific objectives included: 

(1) examining the groundwater storage change under the scenarios of future climate and irrigation activities, 

(2) understanding the social processes underlying irrigation decisions from producers, and 

(3) developing metrics to gauge groundwater sustainability gaps. 

The study helped determine how climate variability and change and irrigation decisions entwine to affect the prospect of groundwater sustainability. Motivated by the aforementioned research gaps, we propose a transferrable modeling framework that can: 

(1) characterize both hydrologic dynamics and producers’ irrigation behaviors, 

(2) integrate hydrologic and social-behavioral models to represent integrated system dynamics, and 

(3) evaluate groundwater sustainability under different management and climate scenarios 

First, we expect the producers to increase their awareness of risks to groundwater sustainability imposed by unrestrictive pumping activities and future climate change. Using a range of project dissemination avenues (e.g., local board meetings, flyers, farming group emails, and social media), we expect to change the perception and attitudes of producers towards groundwater resources: from an unlimited reservoir to a limited and vulnerable resource that requires proactive protection.  Second, we expect the state and regional natural resources agencies to use the modeling framework as a tool to inform water management options and intervention strategies to mitigate groundwater depletion. Our project findings are expected to facilitate more effective science-based policies to maximize the crop production benefits while allow sustainable water use over short and long terms. This will result in shared groundwater sustainability goals of different conservation programs and policies being put in place for the North Central region