1. The document examines water usage and potential sources for agricultural irrigation in western New York, focusing on Genesee and Orleans counties. 2. It analyzes data from various sources on current irrigation practices and water sources. Most irrigation water comes from run-of-river sources but the New York State Barge Canal could potentially provide more reliable water. 3. The study aims to better quantify water usage and balance to determine if there is excess water available to expand irrigation or if current usage meets existing agricultural demand.

1. Lake Ontario Basin Agriculture in the Coming Decades: Room for Expansion or Imminent Future Water Conflict
Stephen Shaw (sbshaw@esf.ed), Theresa Selfa, and Sherry Martin
1. Background
2. Survey of Water Use
3. Next Steps
3A. The NYS Barge Canal (the old Erie Canal) is a potentially underused piece of
water infrastructure. Unlike western states which often have an extensive system
of irrigation canals and reservoirs for conveying and storing irrigation water, most
irrigation water in NY is only available from run-of-river sources that may not be
reliable during dry periods. However, the Barge Canal acts as a direct, gravity fed
conduit of freshwater from Lake Erie that passes in close proximity to tens of
thousands of acres of farmland. Old design reports indicate the canal was intended
to carry over 1000 mgd a day, a small
fraction of which is currently used.
Further work would evaluate the
potential to better use the Barge Canal
as a source of irrigation water.
The USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) provides information on irrigated
acreage per county, subdivided for vegetables and different field crops. However, USDA NASS
does not provide information on county-specific water application rates or waters sources. To
fill in these gaps, we compiled data from three sources: 1. NYS Dept. of Environmental
Conservation records, 2. NYS Barge Canal Records, and 3. our own surveys of irrigation
practices. . Using a combination of telephone and paper surveys, we interviewed 33 different
farms, 17 of which are irrigated. Based on irrigated acreage per county reported by USDA
NASS, these three sources appear to entail farms covering at least 75% of the reported
irrigated acreage in Genesee, Orleans, and Wyoming counties, the three most irrigated
counties in Western NY. Notably, much of the irrigation appears to be done by several very
large farms; data from these large farms is thus representative of the vast majority of the
irrigated area
To help better understand humid region irrigation, there
remains a need to collect basic data that helps better quantify
the overall water balance. Thus, the primary goal of this
project is to identify specific water sources and the magnitude
of water use from each source.
The central question is whether there is excess available water
to expand irrigation or whether irrigation just meets the
demand of existing farms.
References:
McDonald, R.I. and E.H. Girvetz. 2013. Two challenges for U.S. irrigation due to climate change: Increasing irrigated areas in wet states and increasing irrigation
rates in dry states. PLOS One, 8(6), e65589.
Olen, B., J. Wu, and C. Langpap. 2015. Irrigation decisions for major west coast crops: Water scarcity and climate determinants. American Journal of Agricultural
Economics. 98: 254-271.
Figure 4c. Profile of elevation
changes along the Barge Canal from
Lake Erie to western NY ag land.
Figure 4b. Crop land within 1 km of the Barge Canal and
streams tributary to the canal. This analysis indicates
potential underutilized land that could be irrigated at
potentially little cost. Only 30% of land within the buffer is
currently used for agriculture, with a lesser fraction
irrigated.
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210
The streams with the greatest number of irrigation users were also those with USGS
stream gages. We compared reported irrigation water demand to July water availability in
those streams for two cases: minimum daily 20th percentile July discharge for the full
record and minimum July daily discharge for 2016. The minimum 20th percentile July
discharge is intended to indicate water availability during dry conditions occurring every 5
years on average. The 2016 July minimum indicates discharge close to the drought of
record. Based on presumed irrigation withdrawal points, the USGS gage is upstream of
irrigation withdrawals on Tonawanda and Oak Orchard Creeks.
While the majority of US irrigation is in arid regions of the west,
there is also a sizable and growing amount of irrigation in humid
regions. Especially with climate change, humid region irrigation
may become an essential means of maintaining agricultural
productivity (McDonald and Girvetz 2013). However, irrigation in
humid regions is often carried out under a different set of
circumstances than irrigation in the arid west:
● water allocation is determined by riparian water rights, not
prior appropriation as used in the West
● water demand can greatly vary from year to year, with no water
being used one year and sizable amounts used another year
Due to these features, there is limited shared water
infrastructure , little centralized coordination of water use, and
few measurements of irrigation demands. When demand
measurements do exist they can represent average conditions
instead of peak demands.
Farm Crops Total Acres Method Normal Duration
Watering
Dry Season Watering
1 Potatoes, corn, oats 2100 Traveling Sprayer 8 weeks NR
2 Cabbage, onions, corn, peas,
snap beans, spinach, turf
6000 Pull reels As needed As needed
3 Apples, carrots, peaches,
raspberries, squash
400 Drip; Overhead
sprayers
NR NR
4 Apples, cherries, corn, wheat,
barley
4000 Drip As needed As needed
5 Apples 490 Drip 4 weeks 8 weeks
6 Peas, snap peas, carrots,
alfalfa
4500 Center pivot; Pull
reels
Not specified 12+ weeks
7 Potatoes, corn, alfalfa 5000 Center pivot < 4 weeks > 4 weeks
8 Corn ,alfalfa 4500 Center pivot 4 weeks 12 weeks
9 Strawberries, apples 180 Drip NR NR
10 Potatoes, carrots, beet,
cabbage, snap bean
8000 Center pivot As needed As needed
11 blueberries 1.5 NR 8 weeks NR
12 apples 75 spray 12 weeks NR
13 organic vegetables 20 drip NR NR
14 Onions, potatoes 400 Center pivot 1x ea. wk. 2x. ea. week
15 Hydroponic beans,
strawberries, & peppers
0.25 hydroponic Water refreshed
daily
NR
16 Sweet corn, eggplant,
peppers, lettuce, brocolli
220 NR NR NR
17 Cabbage, sweet corn,
eggplant, cucumbers, kale
85 NR NR NR
Figure 2. Farms with a 1) Barge Canal Authority
permit for water withdrawal or 2) who report
non-potable water use to the NYS Department
of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
Figure 3. Major watersheds in the western NY region. Table 2 summarizes
irrigation water use and available supply for select watersheds.
Figure 1. Five county region of western
NY analyzed in this study. The primary
focus is on Genesee and Orleans
counties, the counties with the largest
irrigated acreage.
Medina
Albion
Holley
3B. A potentially comprehensive source of water application data is the NASS Farm
and Ranch Irrigation survey (FRIS). With more than 80% of farmers participating,
this data set provides a highly representative sample. However, this data is only
typically released as state-wide aggregate values. At this statewide scale, it is not
possible to discern regional differences in irrigation rates. We have made a special
data request that will allow us to develop a statistical regression model relating
seasonal precipitation, available soil water capacity, and crops grown to water
application rate. While regional values cannot be revealed, the model should
provide some insight into controls on application rates. One prior paper has made
use of the NASS FRIS data in this way ( Olen et al. 2015 ), but for the most part
this existing data appears underutilized.
Waterbody Irrigation
Demand (mgd)
July - 20th
percentile min.
(mgd)
2016 July min.
(mgd)
Potential
Deficit
Potable
Water
Source
Tonawanda Creek 2.3 8.4 3.3 Yes Y
(Batavia secondary source)
Oak Orchard Creek 0.6 5.4 0.3 Yes N
Oatka Creek 0.5 23.3 26.3 No N
Barge Canal 1.5 NA NA NA N
Table 2. Comparison of demand versus supply for streams with sizable irrigation withdrawals.
Other streams had more minor withdrawals: Eighteen Mile Creek, Coy Creek, and Johnson Creek.
Fig 4a. View of Barge Canal near Medina, NY
Table 1. Summary of survey data . Water source was also collected but it is only
shown in summary in Table 2 below.
Acknowledgment:
This work was funded by USDA NIFA Award # 2015-68007-23136.