Historical irrigation water use and groundwater pumpage estimates in the Harney Basin, Oregon, 1991-2018
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This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents
Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes.
| Title: | September 2021. |
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| Title: | Historical irrigation water use and groundwater pumpage estimates in the Harney Basin, Oregon, 1991-2018: by Jordan Beamer, PhD, RG and Mellony Hoskinson. |
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| Name(s): |
Beamer, Jordan, author Hoskinson, Mellony, author Oregon Water Resources Department, issuing body United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, sponsoring body Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, sponsoring body |
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| Type of Resource: | text | |
| Genre: |
bibliography government publication text Statistics |
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| Issuance: | monographic | |
| Date Issued: | 2021 | |
| Publisher: | State of Oregon, Water Resources Department | |
| Place of Publication: | Salem, Oregon | |
| Physical Form: |
electronic resource remote computer online resource |
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| Extent: | 1 online resource (53 pages) color illustrations, color maps | |
| Abstract/Description: | Current and historical crop water use and groundwater pumpage estimates are needed for the Harney Basin in southeastern Oregon for a complete evaluation of the basin's groundwater budget. This will inform the overarching cooperative Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study of the groundwater resource. This open file report describes the process used by OWRD to quantify crop water use from agricultural fields and associated groundwater pumpage in the Greater Harney Valley Area (GHVA) and presents findings of the analysis. Evapotranspiration (ET), consumptive use (CU; ET minus precipitation), and groundwater pumpage were estimated for 13 individual years spanning 1991 to 2018. The average annual growing season for irrigated areas was assumed to occur from May to September. ET of applied surface water and groundwater and groundwater pumpage for irrigation during 1991-2018 were estimated by coupling modeled field level ET estimates with available groundwater-pumpage data. Field-level ET was estimated using a remotely-sensed ET model - Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) - scaled to ET measurements from an alfalfa field in the basin, GridMET precipitation data, and mapped agricultural fields. The source of water used to irrigate each field was obtained from OWRD water rights information. Estimated pumpage volumes associated with each ET estimates were determined using reported pumpage volumes from OWRD's Water Use Reporting database and literature-reported irrigation efficiencies. The METRIC estimated average growing season net ET (ET minus precipitation) for mapped irrigated fields over 1991 to 2018 was 1.51 feet per year (ft/yr) for fields irrigated with primarily groundwater, 1.49 ft/yr for fields irrigated with combined groundwater and surface water, and 1.43 ft/yr for fields irrigated with primarily surface water. In order to facilitate comparison of recharge and discharge volumes and evaluate groundwater development in the USGS groundwater study, the Harney Basin was separated into three analysis regions based on topography and groundwater movement. Current groundwater pumpage estimates for each region represent the mean-annual values of pumpage for the five year period of 2014 to 2018. The mean annual groundwater pumpage volume for each region is as follows: 76,000 acre-feet for the northern region, 20,000 acre-feet in the southern region, and 41,000 acre-feet in western region. The average total pumpage estimate for the GHVA area during 2014-2018 is estimated at 140,000 acre-feet per year from 67,400 groundwater irrigated acres, which represents an increase of 80,000-90,000 acre-feet since the early 1990s. Regional groundwater pumpage rates for fields irrigated with primary groundwater rights averaged 2.16 acre-feet per acre (ac-ft/ac), whereas rates for fields irrigated with supplementary groundwater rights averaged 1.24 ac-ft/ac. | |
| Table of Contents: | Introduction -- Previous work -- Objectives -- Study area -- Approach -- Data assimilation -- Weather data preparation -- Image preparation and land cover -- Measured evapotranspiration -- Estimation of evapotranspiration and crop water use -- Agricultural field boundary mapping and attributes -- Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) model -- Estimation of groundwater pumpage -- Validation with pumpage datasets -- Water budget measurements, case example -- Pumpage from fields irrigated with groundwater and surface water -- Regional groundwater estimates -- Results -- Crop water use rates -- Crop water use volumes -- Groundwater pumpage volumes -- Discussion | |
| Note(s): |
Title from PDF cover (viewed on August 9, 2022) This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes Covers OCLC #1264682351, OCLC #1340046984 Includes bibliographical references (pages 48-51) Funding to support this project was provided by NASA Water Resources Applied Sciences Program Grant # NNX17AF53G Funding to support this project was provided bythe Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board Monitoring Grant # 219-5046-16766 Mode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection Text in English |
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| Subject(s): |
n-us-or Groundwater Irrigation water Water-supply, Agricultural -- Mathematical models Oregon -- Harney Basin |
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| Held by: | Oregon State Library | |
| Restrictions on Access: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/ | |
| Is Part of Series: | Open file report (Oregon. Water Resources Department) no. 2021-02. | |
| In Collections: |