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Irrigation efficiency and water conservation: aligning outcomes for people and nature

Published Article

United States

Publication date: July 9, 2026

File format: URL

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Discover a framework for evaluating irrigation efficiency and water conservation in agricultural landscapes. This study examines how efficiency improvements can affect water consumption, freshwater ecosystems, and water security, offering tools to assess ecological outcomes and support more sustainable water management decisions.

Subject Tags

  • Agriculture
  • Ecosystem management

Abstract

Agricultural water demand is the largest contributor to global water consumption and is expected to increase as climate change shifts precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration patterns and ultimately impacts growing season length. Increasing irrigation efficiency is often considered a path to conserve water without negatively impacting agricultural production, thereby providing a path to improved water security. However, there is substantial evidence that challenges these assumptions and highlights the ways that irrigation efficiency can lead to increased water consumption, depleted water supplies, and harm to freshwater ecosystems. We propose a conceptual framework that builds on two established irrigation efficiency paradoxes and integrates principles of agricultural water use and hydrology within the context of ecosystem water needs. This framework tracks the path of irrigation water through a generalized irrigation system and uses flow regime mechanisms to illustrate the paradoxical nature of these projects and describe the pathways that determine ecological outcomes. In addition, we provide an accompanying list of questions to help better understand project outcomes and develop the science linking agricultural water use and ecological water needs. We use two real-world scenarios that are emblematic of common irrigation efficiency projects to demonstrate the utility of this framework for improving irrigation efficiency outcomes and advancing the science of water management in agricultural landscapes.

Citation

Ruffing CM and Freed Z (2026) Irrigation efficiency and water conservation: aligning outcomes for people and nature. Front. Water 8:1839103. doi: 10.3389/frwa.2026.1839103

TNC Authors