Irrigation projections in Georgia's Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa and Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint Basins: 1995-2020

In this study, we use an ecreage-response model to complement the 1995 USDA/NRCS study of water demand in agriculture in the ACF river basin of Georgia through the year 2020. Due to price effects, our results show that cotton, peanuts, vegetables and orchards receive a larger fraction of irrigation than they do in the NRCS model, while corn receives significantly less. In addition, we model peanut acreage as quasi-fixed in order to reflect agricultural policies, which further increases the share of irrigation applied to cotton, orchards, and vegetables. We combine our estimated model with the results of the NRCS study to determine the implicit future prices assumed in the NRCS model.