By Robert Pore

In a recent commentary Nebraska Farm Bureau President Keith Olsen, he said that despite the state’s and the University of Nebraska’s need to cut the budget because of projected declines in revenue receipts to the state, the Global Water for Food Institute, announced by NU this spring, deserves to go forward.

Olsen, in his commentary, said that while it’s always tempting to delay new initiatives to preserve resources for existing, valued programs, it should not stop innovative ideas that carry clear promise of returning benefits for Nebraska, Nebraskans and the university.

“Nebraskans need it to go forward — because of the importance of water in our state, the water issues we’re facing, and emerging global water issues we are only beginning to learn about,” he said.

Olsen said agriculture uses 75 percent of the world’s freshwater resources. By 2050, he said the world population is projected to increase by 40 percent and the demand for food will double.

“We obviously cannot double available water to meet this need,” he said. “The International Food Policy Research Institute projects that if current consumption trends continue, the ag sector will experience serious water shortages by 2025, only 15 years from now.”

How irrigation is managed, Olsen said, will be key to whether future farmers have enough water to grow enough food.

“Nebraska leads the nation in number of irrigated acres and we rank fourth in food production among all states,” he said. “Because irrigation is central to Nebraska’s agriculture and economy and because of its political implications, we have a clear interest in learning about innovations worldwide that will help our farmers use water more efficiently. At the same time, our water resources, our expertise in center pivot irrigation and the existing UNL Water Center combine to make Nebraska an effective home for the Global Water for Food Institute.”

According to Olsen, the institute will draw on resources throughout the university to conduct research, provide education, and explore policy implications that affect water and food production worldwide. It will also host experts from around the world as visiting scholars to share what international researchers have learned about water use efficiency, political and economic effects of water decisions, developments in water law, and more, he said.

It will also host symposia and conferences, open to the public, where scientists, economists, politicians and futurists discuss, debate and collaborate. NU’s goal is for the institute to be the place where much of the world’s discussion on water and food takes place, Olsen said.

He said serving as home for the institute will enable Nebraska to be at the “cutting edge of both research and thinking about water and how it is used.”

For example, Olsen said international researchers and policy makers are beginning to speak in terms of the “water footprint” of food — the quantity of water that is used in producing everything that goes into growing food, from water itself to water consumed in producing crop inputs and farm machinery.

“Implications of this view are profound and we in Nebraska have not been part of this discussion. We very much need to be, and the Global Water for Food Institute will give us the opportunity,” Olsen said.

“When we talk about water for food, it’s important to remember that we are also talking about poverty and peace,” he continued. “Water shortages and food insufficiency are the root of many of the world’s armed conflicts. We in Nebraska have the opportunity to play a vital role in creating a more peaceful world by moving forward with the Global Water for Food Institute. We must do this, even when our own financial resources are stretched.”

Olsen hit the nail on the head when he said water for food production is key in helping eliminate poverty and promote peace. As Gov. Dave Heineman has pointed out, water will be the defining issue of the 21th century.

A new analysis by researchers at Oregon State University also emphasizes what Olsen and Heineman have said about water availability in the 21th century as the report said that “some of the worst battles of the next century may be over groundwater.”

According to the report, aquifers are being depleted much faster than they are being replenished in many places, wells are drying up, massive lawsuits are already erupting and the problems have barely begun.

“Aquifers that took thousands of years to fill are being drained in decades, placing both agricultural and urban uses in peril,” the report said. “Groundwater that supplies drinking water for half the world’s population is now in jeopardy.”

In dealing with future water problems, the report borrowed “heavily from lessons learned the hard way by the oil industry.”

“It’s been said that groundwater is the oil of this century,” said Todd Jarvis, associate director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at OSU. “Part of the issue is it’s running out, meaning we’re now facing ‘peak water’ just the way the U.S. encountered ‘peak oil’ production in the 1970s. But there are also some techniques developed by the oil industry to help manage this crisis, and we could learn a lot from them.”

Jarvis, as an example, points to problems facing the Umatilla Basin of eastern Oregon, calling it a classic case of declining groundwater problems.

“In the northern half of Oregon from Pendleton to the Willamette Valley, an aquifer that took 20,000 years to fill is going down fast,” Jarvis said. “Some places near Hermiston have seen water levels drop as much as 500 feet in the past 50-60 years, one of the largest and fastest declines in the world.

“I know of a well in Utah that lost its original capacity after a couple years,” he said. “In Idaho people drawing groundwater are being ordered to work with other holders of stream water rights as the streams begin to dwindle. Mississippi has filed a $1-billion lawsuit against the City of Memphis because of declining groundwater. You’re seeing land subsiding from Houston to the Imperial Valley of California. This issue is real and getting worse.”

In the process, Jarvis said, underground aquifers can be irrevocably damaged – not unlike what happened to oil reservoirs when that industry pumped them too rapidly. Tiny fractures in rock that can store water, he said, sometimes collapse when it’s rapidly withdrawn, and then even if the aquifer had water to recharge it, there’s no place for it to go.

“The unitization concept the oil industry developed is built around people unifying their rights and their goals, and working cooperatively to make a resource last as long as possible and not damaging it,” Jarvis said. “That’s similar to what we could do with groundwater, although it takes foresight and cooperation.”

Water laws, Jarvis said, are often part of the problem instead of the solution.

A “rule of capture” that dates to Roman times, he said, often gives people the right to pump and use anything beneath their land, whether it’s oil or water. That’s somewhat addressed by the “first in time, first in right” concept that forms the basis of most water law in the West, but he said proving that someone’s well many miles away interferes with your aquifer or stream flow is often difficult or impossible. And there are 14 million wells just in the United States, tapping aquifers that routinely cross state and even national boundaries.

Regardless of what else takes place, Jarvis said, groundwater users must embrace one concept the oil industry learned years ago – the “race to the pump” serves no one’s best interest, whether the concern is depleted resources, rising costs of pumping or damaged aquifers.

One possible way out of the conundrum, experts say, is maximizing the economic value of the water and using it for its highest value purpose. But even that will take new perspectives and levels of cooperation that have not often been evident in these disputes, Jarvis said. Government mandates, he said, may be necessary if some of the “unitization” concepts are to be implemented. Existing boundaries may need to be blurred, and ways to share the value of the remaining water identified.

“Like we did with peak oil, everyone knows were running out, and yet we’re just now getting more commitment to alternative energy sources,” Jarvis said. “Soon we’ll be facing peak water, the only thing to really argue over is the date when that happens. So we will need new solutions, one way or the other.”