Does Introduction of Technology Lead to a Reduction in Water Pumping Using Center Pivot Irrigation Systems in Central Nebraska.
Bailey Mullins
Author
07/27/2021
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Analyzing the data from the central Nebraska irrigation project to determine if
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- [00:00:01.480]Hello. My name is Bailey Mullins. My research mentor is Dr.
- [00:00:04.300]Trenton Franz of the School of Natural Resources. And my project is,
- [00:00:07.810]does introduction of technology lead to a reduction in water pumping,
- [00:00:11.740]using center, pivot irrigation systems and central Nebraska,
- [00:00:16.180]and irrigation dependent regions. Finding ways to increase water.
- [00:00:19.210]Sustainability is important, especially as the impacts of climate change.
- [00:00:22.690]Continue to put pressure on our natural resources.
- [00:00:26.230]Since legislative action tends to be slow for the progress of water conservation
- [00:00:30.040]efforts, the necessity for action falls on the farmers and citizens.
- [00:00:34.240]Looking for ways to reduce water is important because as the population grows
- [00:00:38.390]stress on freshwater resources will also increase.
- [00:00:42.910]The purpose of this project was to determine if introducing technology to farms
- [00:00:47.020]will decrease the amount of water used for irrigation without reducing crop.
- [00:00:50.770]Yields. We.
- [00:00:52.900]Hypothesized that if technology is introduced,
- [00:00:56.080]then there'll be a reduction of water pumping.
- [00:01:00.400]So there's central Nebraska irrigation project is a project designed to find
- [00:01:03.890]ways to increase water sustainability and the experiment.
- [00:01:07.480]There were 50 participant farms where technology was introduced at 15 control
- [00:01:11.620]farms,
- [00:01:13.480]similar projects to the central Nebraska irrigation project or the Pepsi-Co
- [00:01:16.960]project where farmers were given water saving technology in order to,
- [00:01:22.330]in order to increase water sustainability and decreased CO2 emissions,
- [00:01:27.820]the Western Nebraska irrigation project,
- [00:01:29.710]or the same technology as the central Nebraska irrigation project was shared.
- [00:01:33.580]But in Western Nebraska,
- [00:01:34.660]where the conditions for more arid and the McKinley project were farmers were
- [00:01:39.550]given technology like internet and telemetry systems to reduce water use
- [00:01:44.590]that technology introduced and the central Nebraska irrigation project,
- [00:01:48.760]our pivots telemetry soil moisture probes flow meters and arable mark two
- [00:01:53.140]weather stations.
- [00:01:56.380]Central pivots telemetry is used to remotely control and monitor pivots
- [00:02:01.030]soil moisture probes are used to estimate the moisture content and soil
- [00:02:06.070]flow meters are used to monitor the amount of water being pumped through a pivot
- [00:02:10.360]and arable mark two weather stations are used to record various weather
- [00:02:13.450]conditions.
- [00:02:16.720]All the data analyzed in this project comes from the central Nebraska irrigation
- [00:02:20.470]project provided by the nature Conservancy and the central plant
- [00:02:25.180]natural resource district
- [00:02:29.410]irrigation plus precipitation for 20 18, 20 19 and 2020,
- [00:02:33.670]as well as the combined data was analyzed to find significance.
- [00:02:38.200]Since this project was limited by funding,
- [00:02:40.390]a power analysis for sample size was conducted in our studio.
- [00:02:46.990]As for the results you can see in the first graph,
- [00:02:50.950]there was an average of 1.3 inches of water saved each year.
- [00:02:56.340]See that here where the control is in blue and the oranges and technology
- [00:03:04.480]each year resulted in a different weather conditions.
- [00:03:06.880]Yet 1.3 inches of water use reduction was seen across all three years.
- [00:03:12.460]This means that these findings are extremely reliable and would likely be found
- [00:03:16.300]if this project were repeated in other areas.
- [00:03:19.870]In 2019. And excuse.
- [00:03:22.300]Me, in 2018,
- [00:03:23.710]there was a total of 210.8 acre feet of water saved in
- [00:03:27.910]2019.
- [00:03:28.870]There was a total of 442.4 acre feet of water saved in a 2020.
- [00:03:33.220]There was a total of 701.6 acre feet of water saved.
- [00:03:37.840]The reason the total amounts of water being saved as increasing each year is
- [00:03:41.560]because each consecutive year more farmers successfully collected their data.
- [00:03:46.840]In 2018. There are only 15 farmers who have successfully collected data in 2019.
- [00:03:51.400]The number was 34 and in 2020, there was 47 out of 50.
- [00:03:56.950]This shows.
- [00:03:57.400]That there's a behavioral lag and learning how to use technology and properly
- [00:04:00.820]recording the data.
- [00:04:03.190]Our power analysis for sample size resulted in a sample size of 76 participants,
- [00:04:08.320]given that there are 15 control participants
- [00:04:13.280]as for the significance of these findings 20 18, 20 19,
- [00:04:17.630]and 2020 had P values of 0.2,
- [00:04:20.030]2.26 and 0.18, respectively.
- [00:04:24.080]The combined data for all three years resulted in a P value of 0.07.
- [00:04:29.780]This means that the findings were not significant.
- [00:04:34.900]There were also no reports of loss yield for any farms
- [00:04:39.870]in conclusion while the findings were not significant.
- [00:04:43.020]We believe that if not for the behavior lag and the project being limited by
- [00:04:46.860]funding, we likely would have seen significant results.
- [00:04:51.830]Future research includes continuing this project for one more growing season,
- [00:04:55.520]as well as conducting the same experiment in Eastern Nebraska,
- [00:04:58.220]where weather conditions are wetter. I'd like to acknowledge my research mentor,
- [00:05:02.960]Dr. Trenton Franz,
- [00:05:04.430]the UNL McNair Scholars Program and the Nature Conservancy and the Central Platte
- [00:05:08.870]Natural Resource District. Thank you.
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