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Buoying the Bear River with Irrigation Infrastructure Funding
Strategic Funding Pools allow NRCS to provide locally focused conservation that benefits producers and wildlife. Standing in a couple of inches of water down in the floodplain of the Bear River, Ben Weston surveyed one of his hay fields. Tall green grasses reach up to his waist, bowing in the gusts created by a hot…
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Science Q&A: Flood Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge
Water is the West’s most precious resource, and yet there is so much we don’t know about it. How are groundwater supplies and aquifers—as well as rivers and streams—affected by return flows from surrounding wetlands and agricultural fields? What happens to irrigation water after it helps grow crops and forage for livestock? Moreover, how do…
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A Look at the Montana Groundwater Investigation Program
Q&A with Jenna Dohman, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Hydrogeologist Jenna Dohman’s work with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology’s Montana Ground Water Investigation Program includes a groundwater monitoring project on the Big Hole River, where most private land agricultural irrigation involves flood-irrigating grass hay. Dohman is measuring surface water at 16 sites…
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Learning more about how irrigation intensification impacts sustainability of streamflow in the Western United States
A Q&A with David Ketchum, USGS remote sensing and geospatial information specialist David Ketchum’s research with the University of Montana, Irrigation intensification impacts sustainability of streamflow in the Western United States, looks into the relationship between irrigation intensification and in-stream flows in watersheds across the western United States. As climate-change-induced drought impacts water availability for…
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Wetland Benefits of Flood-Irrigated Grass Hay
SUPPORTING SCIENCE & RESOURCES Wetland Evaluation Tool This spatial wetland analysis product enables users to track changes in surface water over space and time. Download the Data Access the data behind the Working Wetlands Explorer. Contact Teagan Hayes for more information. Read the Insights The Intermountain Insights provides an overview of the science and its…
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IWJV Science: Flood-Irrigated Grass Hay Sustains Western Wetlands
Flood irrigating grass hay meadows is a practice that has long enabled ranchers in the snowmelt-driven systems of the western United States to produce forage for livestock and sustain their operations. But as water scarcity increases throughout this semi-arid region, conversion to irrigation practices like center-pivot or other sprinkler systems, these irrigation systems are threatened—along…
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Greater Sandhill Cranes
Greater sandhill cranes are among the most iconic migratory waterbirds of western North America. Commonly considered seasonal harbingers, their movements throughout the predominantly rural landscapes of the Intermountain West are often celebrated with festivals and are timed with seasonal cycles important to agricultural communities. Sandhill cranes are inextricably linked to ranching and working lands. Their…
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Shoring Up the Banks on Nevada Creek
Decades of restoration are accumulating to keep a key tributary to Montana’s Blackfoot River functioning for ranchers and native trout. On a late August morning, Ryen Neudecker and Brent Mannix watch water drip out of a seep above a lazy section of Nevada Creek. The creek’s waters are languid as it runs underneath a thick…
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Restoring Mesic Habitat in Idaho
Restoration work through the Idaho Mesic Rangeland Resources Enhancement Project is gaining momentum thanks to funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) passed by Congress in 2021. Back in the 1960s and 70s, late-season water from Succor Creek pooled up and spread out through Chipmunk Meadow, feeding a green oasis in the otherwise dry sagebrush steppe…
