Ogallala Oases: Water Use, Population Redistribution, and Policy Implications in the High Plains of Western Kansas, 1980–1990

Abstract

Contrary to recent literature that portrays the High Plains as an over‐exploited region of economic and demographic decline and as place that should be deprivatized, abandoned, and resotred to a buffalo commons, this study suggests that the irrigated Ogallala region is not dying. It is experiencing, instead, a major redistribution of population into nucleated Ogallala oases sustained by the presence of ample groundwater for irrigation. Although more remote rural areas with irrigated agriculture are losing population, they endure nonetheless as important components of the cultural landscape in their role as hinterlands for the Ogallala oases. This paper examines the relationship between proximity to groundwater use and population change in the Ogallala aquifer region of Kansas during the 1980s. The analysis focuses on three levels; the county, incorporated and census designated places, and rural census county subdivisions. The association between proximity to groundwater and population change is statistically significant among counties, among places larger than 500 inhabitants, and among more densely‐populated rural areas. Groundwater use is not associated, however, with population change in places with fewer than 500 people or in sparsely‐populated rural census county subdivisions. These patterns of population change are not merely reflections of historical inertia. They are better explained by active responses to the advantages of agglomeration and access to groundwater than to the passive unfolding of past patterns of population redistribution. In this context, a triage‐type development policy that favors Ogallala oases larger than 500 inhabitants seems a more appropriate response to regional problems than the alternatives of growth poles, service sharing strategies, outright abandonment, or laissez‐faire.

Groundwater Rights in Mexican Agriculture: Spatial Distribution and Demographic Determinants

“…Mexico has long experienced south-tonorth agricultural labor migration within its own borders and further into the United States. This trend and the spatial data on groundwater and population in agriculture suggest that irrigated farming in the north is a labor magnet, in a manner similar to that observed by White (1994). As a result, irrigation development by commercial farmers appears to drive agricultural groundwater demand and depletion, as well as influence labor migration.…”

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Water as rural heritage: reworking modernity through resource conflict in Edwards County, Kansas

“…In the face of years of social, political, and economic decline, against which people feel powerless to change, they ARTICLE IN PRESS 5 The exception proves the rule. In a sea of declining rural communities, beef packing centers such as Liberal, Dodge City, and Garden City have been islands of profound growth (White, 1994) growing at a rate double the average rate for the state of Kansas, with natural change rates (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995) ranked in the top 1 percent nationally. These changes are attributed to a high natural rate of increase and a large net in-migration, chiefly from foreign sources (Solı´s, forthcoming).…”

Liquid Assets: How Demographic Changes and Water Management Policies Affect Freshwater Resources

“…In early societies, water was one of the primary factors for settlement, and there is still some evidence of this. For example, in the 1980s in the United States, in the Oglalla aquifer region of Kansas, an association was found between groundwater use and population change, implying active responses to access to groundwater (White, 1994). More commonly, however, water can be an indirect pull factor, when availability of water and other infrastructure induces industry to locate in a region.…”