Resource assessment reveals escalating water competition between agriculture and energy in the western United States, highlighting constraints imposed by aquatic ecosystem protection.
Conflicts for water between US agriculture and energy sectors are projected to increase. Currently agriculture consumes 83% of the water withdrawn, and an increase of 17% is projected by the year 2000. At the same time, a major synfuel program from coal and oil shale could increase water consumption for energy production 4- to 30-fold over present levels. A significant portion of this growth in water demand will occur in the western states where most irrigated agriculture and one-half of US coal reserves are located. Environmental restrictions and the necessity to maintain aquatic ecosystems are additional constraints.
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Pimentel et al. (1982) studied this question.
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