Drought situations within the final couple of years have led to St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID) south of Lethbridge to signal new water sharing memorandums of understanding amongst customers in 4 sub-basins of southern Alberta.
With out a important change in reservoir ranges, the water allocation for the 2024 12 months stands at eight inches of water per acre on the farm gate. Final 12 months, the allocation for water in the identical district was 14 inches per acre.
SMRID is the biggest irrigation district in North America encompassing over 500,000 acres.
The drought cycle that southern Alberta at present finds itself in is essentially the most acute cycle seen by the world because the drought of 2001. Whereas these drought cycles aren’t unusual within the final 900 years, the present drought has led to low reservoir storage in all of southern Alberta, an space that partially depends on the mountain snowpack, which was lower than regular this previous season, says David Westwood, basic supervisor of SMRID.
Whereas the district is in higher form storage-wise than in the course of the drought of 2001, a better inhabitants within the space has led to extra demand on water.
Irrigation is essential to the depth of agriculture within the district. Westwood says with these restrictions producers which are seeding excessive worth, greater water want crops, equivalent to potatoes, would possibly take a look at seeding probably much less of the one crop and extra of a grain or cereal crop. They’ll then switch allocation from the decrease water use crops to enhance the water that they’d wish to placed on the upper use crop.
On this interview, Shaun Haney of RealAgriculture is joined by Westwood to debate the water scenario in southern Alberta, future plans for the irrigation districts, and the impact that restrictions could have on producers:
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