Maximizing Water for Agriculture

A rural Pennsylvania community addresses water quality issues and shows the benefits of targeted, collaborative, voluntary approaches to watershed conservation and implementation of BMPs in this USDA Showcase Watershed.

Is New Hampshire's Oyster Farming Poised to Surge? Oyster farming requires no fertilizer, no feed, and filters the waters of estuaries in the process. New Hampshire's oyster farming industry could eventually help to restore the waters of the LIttle Bay to the point where they could once again support thriving populations of fish and other marine life...if it can scale up. Some growers are already finding that the projections for how many acres of the estuary could support oyster farms have been way overblown, and the ceiling of the industry in the Great Bay watershed might be much lower than was once hoped.

The water cycle in communities across Utah is pretty straightforward. Water comes out of creeks and reservoirs, serves some purpose, and is put back into the chain further downstream. But as the state’s population continues to rise, what we put back into the chain often comes with more than just water.

The Platte River is a major watershed for the plains, supporting people, agriculture and wildlife. For the past few years, a team has been capturing time-lapse images along the river. For our in-depth report “Water Demands on the Platte,” NET News looked into how those photographs are creating an innovative new look at the entire river basin.

One of the biggest users of the Platte doesn’t actually take water out of the river. It’s used by wildlife—especially migrating birds. Most Nebraskans are familiar with the annual spectacle of millions of birds roosting in the central Platte on their way north. But few know how much work occurs year round to maintain this quality habitat, especially for endangered species. For our in-depth report “Water Demands on the Platte,” NET News looked at how the river is being managed for wildlife.

There's no chance that agriculture could flourish in Utah on rainfall alone. But one way to create more water in our system is to be more efficient with what we have; so researchers are working on making irrigation more predictable and more precise.