Addressing Groundwater Declines with Precision Agriculture: An Economic Comparison of Monitoring Methods for Variable-Rate Irrigation

Irrigated row-crop agriculture is contributing to declining groundwater in areas such as the Mississippi Delta region of eastern Arkansas. There is a need to move toward sustainable levels of groundwater withdrawal. Recent improvements in remote monitoring technologies such as wireless soil moisture sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles offer the potential for farmers to effectively practice site-specific variable-rate irrigation management for the purpose of applying water more efficiently, reducing pumping costs, and retaining groundwater. Soil moisture sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles are compared here in terms of their net returns per acre-foot and cost-effectiveness of aquifer retention. Soil moisture sensors ($9.09 per acre-foot) offer slightly more net returns to producers than unmanned aerial vehicles ($7.69 per acre-foot), though costs associated with unmanned aerial vehicles continue to drop as more manufacturers enter the market and regulations become clear.