A Groundwater Transfer and Injection Project to Address the Sustainability of Irrigated Agriculture in the Lower Mississippi River Basin.

The Lower Mississippi River Basin is one of the most productive agricultural regions of the United States and also one of the most intensively irrigated. The quality, access, and abundance of shallow groundwater in the Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer has resulted in overwhelming reliance on this resource to supply water for agricultural irrigation. While demand for new irrigated acreage is still rising to meet yield potentials, declining groundwater levels demonstrate that demand is already exceeding the annual recharge of the aquifer. Thus, management of recharge and irrigation demand at the regional scale is required. This presentation will describe a novel groundwater injection project under consideration in the region including current research underway to evaluate the feasibility of the concept.