Sustainability of Agriculture: A Study of Digital Groundwater Supervision

Groundwater depletion caused by agricultural irrigation is a worldwide problem. Digital technology has the potential to mitigate the groundwater over-exploitation problem by precisely restricting agriculture groundwater withdrawal and borewell construction. This study estimates how farmers respond to a pilot on digital groundwater supervision, which was implemented by the county government to limit the number and clarify property rights of irrigation borewells. By utilizing this recent pilot in rural China, we assess the causal impact of the digital groundwater supervision pilot on farmers’ water-saving irrigation (WSI) behaviors and investigate the heterogeneity effects and mechanisms related to the policy contents. A difference-in-differences (DID) strategy is applied to address the treatment effect of the digital groundwater supervision pilot. The results, which were based on a unique plot-crop-level panel dataset, indicate that farmers reduced water use after the pilot implementation, with most of the responses created through introducing water-saving technology and reducing water use intensity rather than through reducing irrigated acreage. In addition, village supervision, information, and cooperative incentives positively encourage farmers to adopt WSI technologies.

[1]  P. Burgi,et al.  Digital Technology and Services for Sustainable Agriculture in Tanzania: A Literature Review , 2022, Sustainability.

[2]  Feng Wang,et al.  Evaluation of Groundwater Storage Depletion Using GRACE/GRACE Follow-On Data with Land Surface Models and Its Driving Factors in Haihe River Basin, China , 2022, Sustainability.

[3]  Miying Yang,et al.  Digitalisation for Water Sustainability: Barriers to Implementing Circular Economy in Smart Water Management , 2021, Sustainability.

[4]  Cara A. Stitzlein,et al.  Foresighting Australian digital agricultural futures: Applying responsible innovation thinking to anticipate research and development impact under different scenarios , 2021 .

[5]  Zhenci Xu,et al.  Subsystem-level groundwater footprint assessment in North China Plain – The world’s largest groundwater depression cone , 2020 .

[6]  L. Singletary,et al.  The Relationship between Priority and Value of Irrigation Water Used with Prior Appropriation Water Rights , 2020, Land Economics.

[7]  M. Dar,et al.  Farmer Field Days and Demonstrator Selection for Increasing Technology Adoption , 2020, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[8]  S. Shamshirband,et al.  Groundwater Quality Assessment for Sustainable Drinking and Irrigation , 2019, Sustainability.

[9]  J. Chamberlin,et al.  Site-specific agronomic information and technology adoption: A field experiment from Ethiopia , 2019, Journal of development economics.

[10]  Laurens Klerkx,et al.  A review of social science on digital agriculture, smart farming and agriculture 4.0: New contributions and a future research agenda , 2019, NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences.

[11]  G. Shively,et al.  Does improved storage technology promote modern input use and food security? Evidence from a randomized trial in Uganda , 2018, Journal of development economics.

[12]  Nathan P. Hendricks,et al.  Adaptation to an irrigation water restriction imposed through local governance , 2018, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

[13]  T. G. Gebremicael,et al.  Farmers’ perception towards the challenges and determinant factors in the adoption of drip irrigation in the semi-arid areas of Tigray, Ethiopia , 2018, Sustainable Water Resources Management.

[14]  Man Li,et al.  Agricultural Water Allocation under Uncertainty: Redistribution of Water Shortage Risk , 2018, American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

[15]  G. Grolleau,et al.  Social norms and pro-environmental behavior: A review of the evidence , 2017 .

[16]  A. Weersink,et al.  Actual versus environmentally recommended fertilizer application rates: Implications for water quality and policy , 2017 .

[17]  D. Zilberman,et al.  Diffusion of Drip Irrigation: The Case of California , 2017 .

[18]  Andreea D. Gorbatai,et al.  Testing Coleman’s Social-Norm Enforcement Mechanism: Evidence from Wikipedia1 , 2017, American Journal of Sociology.

[19]  S. Cline,et al.  Improving Groundwater Management for Indian Agriculture: Assessing Tradeoffs Across Policy Instruments , 2016 .

[20]  A. Janvry,et al.  Technological Innovations, Downside Risk, and the Modernization of Agriculture , 2016 .

[21]  Junjie Wu,et al.  Irrigation Decisions for Major West Coast Crops: Water Scarcity and Climatic Determinants , 2016 .

[22]  J. Ifft,et al.  The Impact of Irrigation Restrictions on Cropland Values in Nebraska , 2015 .

[23]  Jinxia Wang,et al.  Policies, economic incentives and the adoption of modern irrigation technology in China , 2015 .

[24]  K. Schwabe,et al.  Irrigated Agricultural Adaptation to Water and Climate Variability: The Economic Value of a Water Portfolio , 2015 .

[25]  J. Famiglietti.  The global groundwater crisis , 2014 .

[26]  M. Adrianzen.  Social Capital and Improved Stoves Usage Decisions in the Northern Peruvian Andes , 2014 .

[27]  P. Seabright,et al.  Cooperation Against Theft: A Test of Incentives for Water Management in Tunisia , 2014 .

[28]  Margarita Genius,et al.  Information Transmission in Irrigation Technology Adoption and Diffusion: Social Learning, Extension Services, and Spatial Effects , 2014 .

[29]  N. Brozović,et al.  The regulation of a spatially heterogeneous externality: Tradable groundwater permits to protect streams , 2012 .

[30]  Grischa Perino,et al.  Does more stringent environmental regulation induce or reduce technology adoption? When the rate of technology adoption is inverted u-shaped , 2012 .

[31]  Raphael Calel,et al.  Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market , 2012, Review of Economics and Statistics.

[32]  J. Raffensperger.  Matching users' rights to available groundwater , 2011 .

[33]  Shakeel Ahmed,et al.  Optimization of a Groundwater Monitoring Network for a Sustainable Development of the Maheshwaram Catchment, India , 2011 .

[34]  M. Rosenzweig,et al.  Microeconomics of Technology Adoption. , 2010, Annual review of economics.

[35]  Eric Ruto,et al.  What Do Farmers Want From Agri‐Environmental Scheme Design? A Choice Experiment Approach , 2010 .

[36]  David J. Leatham,et al.  Irrigation technology adoption and its implication for water conservation in the Texas High Plains: a real options approach , 2007 .

[37]  Scott Rozelle,et al.  Water saving technology and saving water in China , 2007 .

[38]  Abhishek Lal,et al.  An overview of microfinance and the environmental sustainability of smallholder agriculture , 2006 .

[39]  A. Jaffe,et al.  A tale of two market failures: Technology and environmental policy , 2005 .

[40]  J. Seinfeld,et al.  Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change , 1998 .

[41]  J. Cooper,et al.  Incentive Payments to Encourage Farmer Adoption of Water Quality Protection Practices , 1996 .

[42]  Christopher B. Barrett,et al.  Measuring Social Networks' Effects on Agricultural Technology Adoption , 2013 .

[43]  J. Stiglitz,et al.  Fear and Market Failure: Global Imbalances and " Self-insurance " Cataloging-in-publication Data Provided by the Inter-american Development Bank , 2003 .