Agricultural Economics Department

 

First Advisor

Taro Mieno

Second Advisor

Karina Schoengold

Third Advisor

Nicholas Brozović

Date of this Version

7-25-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science

Major: Agricultural Economics

Under the supervision of Professor Taro Mieno

Lincoln, Nebraska, July 2018

Comments

Copyright © 2018, James B. Keeler

Abstract

Understanding the adaptive capacity of irrigated agriculture, including to what extent producers adjust irrigation choices along the intensive and extensive margins, is vital to the development of accurate and holistic estimates of the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and the sustainability of water-related ecosystem services. This thesis proposes and implements a natural experiment using statistical matching methods to estimate how producers adjust groundwater extraction, irrigated crop acreage, and irrigation technology in response to long-term changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration. Results from groundwater irrigated fields in Kansas suggest that intensive and extensive margin water use adaptations are generally limited in practice, but there is some evidence of adjustments in both crop acreage and mean overall groundwater extraction, particularly for irrigated corn production.

Advisor: Taro Mieno

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