by Reed Watson
The third case study in PERC's Water as a CropTM series highlights a conservation partnership between environmentalists and farmers in Georgia's Flint River Basin. There, prolonged drought combined with increasing water demands threatened endangered species and agricultural revenues. Rather than conflict, the region's water scarcity has spawned cooperation. As the case study explains, the two groups have worked together to develop and implement a new irrigation technology known as variable rate irrigation that allows irrigators to more precisely apply water to their crops and, consequently, leave more water in the ground for environmental purposes.
To see what variable rate irrigation is all about, see the video below: