Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID MT_2025_Hagerty

Economic Modeling of Irrigation Water Demand to Advance Watershed Planning in Montana

Institute: Montana
Year Established: 2025 Start Date: 2026-01-01 End Date: 2026-12-31
Total Federal Funds: $24,987 Total Non-Federal Funds: $24,990

Principal Investigators: Montana State University

Project Summary: Water management in Montana faces rising challenges. Recent droughts and low snow levels have raised concerns about the reliability of future water supplies and the economic impacts to crop and livestock production. Meanwhile, population growth and demand for recreation and conservation are leading to growing conflict among competing uses of water. These challenges make it increasingly valuable to develop sophisticated water resource management models that can be used for forecasting, watershed planning, and developing management strategies. Water resource management models are typically highly sophisticated on the water supply side. However, the demand side of these models largely remains limited to static estimates of water use. They typically do not model the underlying socioeconomic drivers of water use nor allow for feedback between water use and water availability. Incorporating economic models of water demand is a crucial step to bring Montana's water resource management models into the next generation.