Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project 

This website is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2016-68007-25066, “Sustaining agriculture through adaptive management to preserve the Ogallala aquifer under a changing climate."  This multi-disciplinary collaborative effort funded by USDA-NIFA, was focused on developing and sharing practical, science-supported information relevant to best management practices for optimizing water use across the Ogallala region. Our interdisciplinary team was engaged in research, outreach and cooperative partnerships with a diverse set of stakeholders, working to support current and future generations of producers in the region.

The Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project (OWCAP) was a USDA-NIFA funded (2016-2020), multidisciplinary research and outreach project focused on helping to address issues related to groundwater declines (quantity & quality) and long-term agricultural sustainability in the High Plains region. The team of ~70 university researchers, Extension specialists, students and post-docs included 9 institutions (Universities and USDA-Agricultural Research Service) and 6 agricultural experiment stations in 6 Ogallala states.

The project was completed in March 2021.  The website now serves as an archive for deliverables of the project. Amy Kremen was the project manager. Meagan Schipanski, Ph.D., Colorado State University, was the project P.I.  Several AgriLife faculty were actively engaged in this project (John Tracy, former Director, TWRI; Dana Porter, BAEN/AgriLife Research and Extension; Brent Auvermann, AgriLife Research; and Jim Bordovsky (retired), AgriLife Research.

The Ogallalawater.org page provides public access to information about the project, participants, and background information about the Ogallala Aquifer, as well as citations and links to publications (peer reviewed and other publications), presentations (including videos), and materials related to two regional Ogallala Aquifer Summits.