Irrigation Organizations 2019 Summary

Scope and Purpose: This work was conducted by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and Economic Research Service (ERS), in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Economist (OCE). It provides a greater understanding of local irrigation organizations, their operations, and their impact on drought resilience. Increasing demands on the Nation’s limited water resources has heightened the need for information on local management decisions and infrastructure systems that can help guide agricultural drought responses. Limited data on how water-supply entities respond to water scarcity hinders local water management decisions. NASS and ERS developed a national survey to provide the first updated dataset of local water-supply management entities since the Census Bureau conducted the 1978 Census of Irrigation Organizations. Over the last several decades, many aspects of local water management institutions have changed, including the number and size of irrigation organizations, the pricing structures used for cost recovery, the increasing demand for new types of water quantity data, and the expanding emphasis on groundwater management. This report provides a nationally representative assessment of irrigation water-delivery entities and groundwater management districts serving the U.S. agricultural irrigated sector.