Gonçalves et al. (2026) Irrigated agriculture in the United States: Current status and future frontiers

Identification

• Journal: Agricultural Water Management
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-03-27
• Authors: Ivo Zution Gonçalves, Christopher M. U. Neale, T. M. Jardim, Regiane De Carvalho Bispo, Randall S. Ritzema, Renata Rimšaitė
• DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2026.110319

Research Groups

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, United States

Short Summary

This review assesses the current status and future frontiers of irrigated agriculture in the United States, analyzing regional trends, water sources, crop diversity, and management practices from 2003-2023, and identifies key challenges like groundwater depletion and an eastward shift in irrigation.

Objective

• To provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of irrigation activities in the U.S., including expansion, changes in methods, opportunities, and challenges.
• To analyze and critically examine the temporal and spatial factors shaping irrigation practices.
• To offer insights into current irrigation status, recognize emerging trends, and project future directions for agricultural sustainability.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: United States, with state- and county-level analysis.
• Temporal Scale: Two-decade span from 2003 to 2023.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, including ArcGIS Pro for spatial analysis and mapping.
• Data sources: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census of Agriculture (2003, 2008, 2013, 2019, 2023), Cropland Data Layer (CDL) (30-meter resolution), and MIrAD-US (MODIS Irrigated Agriculture Dataset for the United States) (250-meter resolution, resampled to 30 meters).

Main Results

• In 2023, the U.S. had 21.5 million hectares of irrigated land, representing 26.2% of farmland and supporting over 54% of crop sales.
• Irrigated area decreased by 2.8 million hectares (5.3%) from 2018 to 2023, primarily due to drought and economic factors.
• California (3.14 million hectares) and Nebraska (2.95 million hectares) have the most irrigated land, followed by Arkansas (1.9 million hectares), Texas (1.5 million hectares), and Idaho (1.3 million hectares), collectively accounting for 50.1% of all U.S. irrigated land.
• Groundwater is the primary irrigation source in the U.S., accounting for 55% (54 billion cubic meters) of withdrawals in 2023, with California and Idaho being exceptions that rely predominantly on surface water.
• The most irrigated crops by area are corn (5.5 million hectares), soybean (3.3 million hectares), alfalfa (2.2 million hectares), cotton (1.0 million hectares), and rice (0.9 million hectares).
• The conversion from gravity to pressurized irrigation systems (sprinklers and low-flow) increased from 57% in 2003 to almost 70% in 2023, with sprinklers at 58% and low-flow methods at 12%.
• Adoption of advanced irrigation technologies, such as soil water content sensors (13% in 2023) and ET-based scheduling, is increasing, with California and Nebraska leading in adoption.
• A significant shift in irrigated land from the western U.S. toward the east was observed from 2003 to 2023, driven by persistent drought, groundwater depletion, and stricter regulations in the West, and increasing demand in the East.
• Groundwater levels in Nebraska have declined by an average of 0.17 meters statewide over the last 10 years, and by more than 3 meters since pre-development in much of the state. Texas has lost 660 thousand hectares of irrigated land since 2008 (30%) due to Ogallala Aquifer depletion and prolonged droughts.

Contributions

• Provides a comprehensive national-scale synthesis of temporal and spatial trends in U.S. irrigated agriculture, addressing a gap in existing literature.
• Identifies key challenges to U.S. irrigation sustainability, including groundwater depletion, inefficient management, regulatory constraints, and climate change impacts.
• Highlights the urgency of establishing robust water governance institutions in historically rainfed eastern states to manage emerging water shortages and user conflicts.
• Offers policy recommendations to promote irrigation sustainability, such as strengthening groundwater governance (e.g., mandatory pumping metering, enforceable extraction limits), incentivizing efficiency-enhancing technologies, and integrating surface and groundwater management through watershed-based institutions.
• Emphasizes the critical role of U.S. irrigation for global food security while underscoring the need for adaptive strategies and technological innovation to ensure long-term sustainability under changing climatic conditions.

Funding

The authors thank the Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska for scientific technical support.

Citation

@article{Gonçalves2026Irrigated,
  author = {Gonçalves, Ivo Zution and Neale, Christopher M. U. and Jardim, T. M. and Bispo, Regiane De Carvalho and Ritzema, Randall S. and Rimšaitė, Renata},
  title = {Irrigated agriculture in the United States: Current status and future frontiers},
  journal = {Agricultural Water Management},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1016/j.agwat.2026.110319},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2026.110319}
}