The groundwater-agriculture relation: Its socioeconomic benefits and environmental hazards

Irrigated agriculture has brought major socioeconomic benefits to many of the more arid areas of the world, but has simultaneously impacted the underlying groundwater in a variety of ways. This paper overviews this frontier, stressing that unregulated and uncontrolled waterwell irrigation widely results in groundwater resource overexploitation accompanied by negative impacts for all groundwater users and dependent environments. Most types of intensive irrigated agriculture result in the leaching of excess nutrients and pesticides to groundwater, and in some settings progressive aquifer salinisation. Groundwater resource degradation can, in turn, significantly impact food production. Few governments have made adequate parallel investments in water resource management, and a paradigm shift is needed in the approach to groundwater with greater emphasis on farmer education about sustainable use, clear incentives for water-resource saving and agricultural land-use planning to conserve groundwater. Of particular importance is that farmers should bear the full energy cost of their pumping as an incentive for water saving, with metering of power consumption allowing its combined invoicing with groundwater use.