Abstract
Recent decades have witnessed the expansion of irrigated agriculture in some of the most productive semi-arid economies in the world, such as the Texas High Plains. Interest in groundwater management continues to increase due to the excessive depletion of groundwater, which is the primary source of fresh water supply in these economies that critically depend on irrigated agriculture. In addition, the uncertainties posed through extreme climatic events such as drought exacerbate the challenge of managing this scarce yet vital resource. This chapter describes the problem of declining groundwater resources in a semi-arid economy exemplified by the Texas High Plains, discusses the management approach of water use restriction to handle the ever increasing demand for agricultural production with a limited supply in hand, and outlines the role of policy planning in groundwater management. For a semi-arid economy such as the Texas High Plains that is largely dependent on groundwater resources, an effective partnership between groundwater management bodies and local producers is an important step in planning towards the long term objective of ensuring adequate groundwater availability in the future.
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Tewari, R. (2016). Management of Declining Groundwater Resources and the Role of Policy Planning in Semi-Arid Economies: The Case of Texas High Plains. In: Fares, A. (eds) Emerging Issues in Groundwater Resources. Advances in Water Security. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32008-3_13
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