The Alberta Land Institute released a new report highlighting the economic benefits of expanding Alberta's irrigation system.

Dr. Evan Davies, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, was a part of the four year research project.

He says, the research was to assess the possibilities of expanding irrigation in Alberta, and some of the opportunities and challenges that may arise with potential expansion.

During the study, they developed a new system model called, CropSD.

"CropSD is a system dynamics model that's based on a very widely used United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Model, called AquaCrop. What it does is simulate crop yield and biomass production, the effects of water stresses on that production, and so it'll generate things like the water demand to grow six different crops that are grown in Southern Alberta."

Davies says, it also assess the effect of irrigation management options, and the effect of irrigation infrastructure.

He says, the model will serve as a decision-support tool for municipalities, irrigation districts, and Government Ministries.

During the model development, they met with producers and Government Officials in Lethbridge for three workshops over the course of the study.

"What we were trying to do was determine the types of questions that we could answer that would be of interest to irrigation producers in Southern Alberta, as well as irrigation districts, and the various Government

Ministries that might benefit from these analyses as well."

The final report says, Alberta's irrigation related activities, directly or indirectly, added around $3.2 billion to the national GDP in 2011, or about one per cent of the Province's total GDP.

Another part of the study looked at the potential profitabity of expanding Southern Alberta's irrigated area by 10 per cent over the next 16 years.

The results showed the expansions would only be profitable for producers if there was investment from the Government.

What producers can take from the research, is work is being done on irrigation to show the benefits to both irrigators and the wider public, Davies says.

"It is an area of a lot of interest for the acedemic community, as well at the policy makers. There's genuine interest, and there's a view that irrigaiton is good for the Province, and is a very interesting research area in itself."

For a look at the full report, you can visit their website.

The people involved in the study are as follows;

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Dr. Evan Davies, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta

Dr. Miles Dyck, Associate Professor of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta.

CO-INVESTIGATORS

Dr. Scott Jeffrey, Professor of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

Dr. Feng Qiu, Assistant Professor of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

STUDENTS

Mohamed Ammar, PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta.

Bijon Brown, PhD student in Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

Xiaofeng Ruan, PhD student in Renewable Resources, University of Alberta.

Dareskedar Amsalu, Masters student in Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

Marie-Ève Jean, Masters student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta.

Dawn Trautman, Masters student in Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

PAST MEMBERS

Dr. Jim Unterschultz, Associate Professor of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta.

 

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