Sustainability of Agriculture: A Study of Digital Groundwater Supervision

Groundwater depletion caused by agricultural irrigation is a worldwide problem. Digital technology has the potential to mitigate groundwater over-exploitation problem precisely restricting agriculture withdrawal and borewell construction. This study estimates how farmers respond pilot on digital supervision, which was implemented county government limit number clarify property rights of borewells. By utilizing this recent in rural China, we assess causal impact supervision farmers’ water-saving (WSI) behaviors investigate heterogeneity effects mechanisms related policy contents. A difference-in-differences (DID) strategy applied address treatment effect pilot. The results, were based unique plot-crop-level panel dataset, indicate that reduced water use after implementation, with most responses created through introducing reducing intensity rather than irrigated acreage. In addition, village information, cooperative incentives positively encourage adopt WSI technologies.