ABSTRACT
In the arid and semiarid American West, where much of crop agriculture depends on irrigation, consequences of a changing climate will likely be significant. This chapter describes the effects of climate change on water availabilities and examines the dimensions of policy-imposed water conservation in the West and the influence of climate change, both as an initiator of policy change and as a consideration in the policy process. It outlines the Western Agricultural Water Analysis (WAWA) Model, including its scope, components and structure, data, and analytical capabilities. The WAWA Model is an economic model for analyzing the potential effects of alternative water policies on irrigated agriculture in the western United States. The WAWA Model allows endogenous determination of yield per unit land, irrigation-water-application rate, efficiency of irrigation-application technology, regional agricultural-surface-water demand, cropping pattern, total irrigated area, and total nonirrigated area. The ability to grow less-water-intensive crops exists in the multicrop modeling environment.
