The geography of water withdrawals for irrigation (Fig. 6) con\ufb01rms the dominant role of irrigation in agriculture in the West: large withdrawals take place in this part of the country in every state but a few of them and reaches levels as high as 70.1 billion m3/year in California (see Table 3).
But the geography of water withdrawals also shows that eastern states withdraw appreciable volumes of water for irrigation: Florida, of course (9.1 billion m3/year), largely because of the fruit and sugar indus- tries; but also Georgia (2.2 Bm3/year); North and South Carolina (cotton, peanuts, corn, tobacco); New Jer- sey; Massachusetts (0.33 Bm3/year); and Michigan. In the three latter states, large water withdrawals are largely accounted for by the redevelopment of fruit and vegetable cultures for nearby urban markets. Central States in the Missouri/Mississippi basin also use sig- ni\ufb01cant water for irrigation: Nebraska (14.4 Bm3/year), Arkansas (13.3 Bm3/year), Kansas (5.7 Bm3/year), Missis- sippi (2.1 Bm3/year), Missouri (2.1 Bm3/year), Louisiana (1.8 Bm3/year), and Oklahoma (1.2 Bm3/year).
more than 40% of irrigation withdrawals; levels are as high as 49.7% for Montana and 49.1% for Kentucky. On the other hand, 17 states pump less than 30% of their irrigation water from aquifers. Reliance on groundwater is not connected to the size of the withdrawals; states along the lower Mississippi and Missouri basins and around the Great Lakes tend to pump a larger proportion of their irrigation water from surface water.
As a result of the huge withdrawals taking place in the West for irrigation, shares of irrigation water in total freshwater withdrawals (Fig. 7) are nearly always above 60%, except for Kansas (56.3%), Oklahoma (40.7%), Texas (34.8%), and North Dakota (12.7%) (Table 4).
In the eastern United States, the share of irrigation is consistently below 15%, except for Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia (17.8%) and Missouri (17.4%), and is less than 1% in 12 states (Indiana, Vermont, Kentucky, Iowa, Virginia, New York, Alabama, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia). Thus, although it is developing fast in the eastern part of the country and may at times in speci\ufb01c places, represent a problem for water supply in the summertime, irrigation remains by far the major demand sector only in the West. This explains the pressure exerted on ground or surface waterbodies by environmental problems such as the overexploitation (Colorado River)
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Agricultural Engineering is a wide branch with lot of opportunities..
Ideas for a Training and Dissemination Project
A term paper prepared for Bachelor in Agricultural Engineering
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