1. Chapter 6
Municipal and Irrigation
Water Development
Prof. Dr. Ali El-Naqa
Hashemite University
June 2013

2. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

3. Ebenezer Howard
 1850-1928
 Born in London and visited US at age 21
 Saw developing agricultural lands of US as well as
Chicago and New York before returning to London
 Everywhere he traveled he saw unplanned, chaotic
growth
 Thought urban development should be orderly,
bucolic (strong rural/urban connection), and
controlled

4. Ebenezer Howard
 Envisioned broad
boulevards connecting
cities to fields that grew
food
 Large central gardens
and garden plots near
each house
 Described this in a book
called “Garden Cities of
To-morrow”

5. Community Supported Agriculture
 Related to a current concept known as “community
supported agriculture” (CSA)
 Rural-urban connection
 Urban residents pay a fixed fee to a local farm that
guarantees delivery of fresh produce for a given period
(year or season)
 http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/
 http://www.fullmooncoop.org/

6. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

7. Marc Reisner,
Cadillac Desert

8. Los Angeles Aqueduct
 William Mulholland first superintendent of LA Water
Department
 Initiated a program to bring water to LA
 1905 LA purchased farm land in the Owens Valley
 1907 began construction of 233-mile LA Aqueduct to
transport water by gravity to LA

9. Water. 1993. National
Geographic Special
Edition

10. Circa 1908 52-member mule team moving steel pipe for LA aqueduct
Water. 1993. National Geographic Special Edition

11. Current population of LA:
9.9 million

12. Water. 1993. National Geographic Special Edition

13. 1974 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway
roughly based on LA waterworks and Owens Valley scheme

14. Other LA Region Aqueducts
 Colorado River Aqueduct
 Begun in 1928
 Brings water from the Colorado River to San Diego and
LA
 California Aqueduct
 Begun in 1960
 Brings water from Northern CA through the Central
Valley to LA

15. Water. 1993. National
Geographic Special
Edition

16. California Aqueduct pumping station at the Tehachapi Mountains
Water. 1993. National Geographic Special Edition

17. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

18. New York
 Relied on shallow groundwater initially but this
became contaminated due to lack of system for
handling waste
 Developed reservoirs and system of tunnels to deliver
water
 Tunnel # 1 completed in 1917
 Tunnel # 2 completed in 1936
 Tunnel # 3 now under construction
 3rd generation “sandhogs”

21. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

23. Boulder CO
 Restricted growth by limiting expansion of water
supply
 1959 established “blue line” at the base of foothills
beyond which no water or sewer service would be
provided
 1967 first city to enact tax for purchase of “green
space”
 1972 approved growth management plan that
limited residential growth to 2% per year
 Nickname “Republic of Boulder, 25 square miles
surrounded by reality” (Wikipedia)

24. Blue line

25. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

26. 100th meridian dividing line between areas
where crops do and do not need irrigation to survive
snr.unl.edu/metr351-03/jnothwehr/prevention.html

27. Need for Irrigation
 100th meridian is dividing line for average annual
rainfall of 20 in
 Crops vary in the annual rainfall needed to survive
 20-25 in: corn, vegetables, alfalfa
 12-18 in: wheat, oats, sorghum, sunflowers
 To obtain maximum yields, these crops may be
irrigated east of 100th meridian

28. Need for Irrigation
 Western expansion began after Civil War
 Irrigation expanded rapidly in west after invention of
centrifugal pump shortly after WWI
 By mid-1920’s California became richest agricultural
state in U.S. (surpassing Iowa)
 This was an unusually wet period in climate

30. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

31. Irrigation Techniques
 Surface water or groundwater may be the source
 Gravity irrigation – usually used where surface water is
the source
 Furrow irrigation – for row crops
 Wild flood irrigation – for grasses
 Not very efficient due to evaporation losses
 Relatively cheap once canals are built since it is all
gravity flow

32. Furrow Irrigation

33. Furrow Irrigation

34. Irrigated rice being
grown on flooded land
in the Central Valley
near Sacremento
Water. 1993. National
Geographic Special Edition

35. Irrigation Techniques
 Sprinkler irrigation – usually used where groundwater
is the source
 Developed after WWII due to availability of
 Light weight aluminum pipe
 Low cost rural electricity
 Better electric motors
 Center pivot systems most common in GA
 Pivot system can be ¼ mile long
 Expensive due to equipment and pumping

38. Look in SW corner of Kansas using Google Earth

39. Irrigation Techniques
 Drip irrigation – relatively new technology that
delivers just enough water to each plant
 Used often with high-value vegetable crops
 Low pressure surface or buried tubing runs along each
row
 Small opening at each plant drips water

40. www.tsystemsinternational.com
Drip Irrigation

41. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

42. Salinity Long-term danger with irrigation in arid regions
 Soil and rock is usually high in salt due to low rainfall
 Salts concentrate in the root zone unless enough water is
added to leach them downward
 Adding excess water tends to raise the water table near
the surface
 Evaporation causes more movement of salt to surface

43. Water. 1993. National Geographic Special Edition

44. Salinity
 May have been the cause of failure of ancient
civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Tigrus River Valley,
Hohokam, etc.
 Only Nile River survived for centuries
 Reliable annual flooding leached salts out of root zone
and deposited fresh soil
 Aswan Dam built in 1960’s stopped annual flooding and
now salinity is a problem

45. Chapter Headings
 Municipal water systems
 Ebenezer Howard
 Los Angeles
 Lincoln
 New York
 Boulder
 Irrigation
 The need for irrigation
 Irrigation techniques
 Salinity
 Competition for water

46. Competition for Water
 Traditionally in the west, water rights have been held
by agricultural users
 Western cities are looking for new sources of water
 Sets up a conflict between cities and rural water users
 Third party in conflict is environmentalist arguing for
keeping water in streams – “ecosystem services”

47. Water. 1993. National Geographic Special Edition
Competition for Water

48. Competition for Water
 New York Times article, December 14, 2004
 Central Valley Project is country’s largest federal
irrigation project
 Initiated in 1937 to provide cheap water to family
farmers
 Fall 2004 was time for farmers to renew their water
contracts
 Contracts are for 25 or 40 years
 Contract specifies how much water and what price

49. Competition for Water
 Federal water subsidy to farmers total value estimated
at $416 million per year
 Median subsidy of $7,076 per farm each year
 Largest 10% of farms average $349,000 per farm per year
 Negotiations between Bureau of Land Reclamation
(federal agency that runs project) and farmers over 233
new contracts began in 1999

50. Competition for Water
 Subsidies are limited to farms no larger than 960-
acres
 Woolf Enterprises, a “family-owned farming
business”
 Received $3.5-4.2 million in subsidies in 2002
 Grow almonds, cotton, tomatoes and other crops on
about 20,000 acres
 Each 960-acre tract is owned by different family
member
 New contracts will continue subsidies

51. Competition for Water
 Under a CA law, farmers may be able to sell water to
cities
 Representative George Miller, California Congressman
 "What these guys are doing is freezing in time the
massive subsidies that go to the largest and wealthiest
farmers in the state, and who are then going to sell it
back to the taxpayers“
 "It is a great gig if you can get it."

52. Competition for Water
 Department of Interior officials
 Defend new contracts as keeping with the bureau's
mission since 1902 of encouraging agricultural
development in the West
 Though costs of water supplies are below market value,
new rates will be high enough to recover costs of
building Central Valley Project by 2030

53. Water Subsidies
 Environmental Working Group (EWG) maintains a
website on water subsidies
 http://www.ewg.org/reports/watersubsidies/
 Look at Westlands WD, third from bottom

54. Chapter Summary
 Two big users of water are cities and agriculture
 Elaborate systems have been developed to move
water from rural areas to large cities
 Irrigation systems became common in western
U.S. in 1900’s
 Salinity is the long-term danger with irrigation in
arid area
 Both cities and agriculture will have to develop
better methods to conserve water

55. Quiz 6
 Who are the two big users of water in the U.S.?
 Where does Los Angeles get it’s water?
 What is a center pivot system?
 Why does salinity become a problem with irrigation in
arid areas?