What does an acre foot of water cost?

What does an acre foot of water cost?

California farmers pay an average of $70 per acre-foot for water to irrigate crops. Buy a $700 reverse osmosis water purification system; run 326,000 gallons of water (one acre foot) through it; bottle it, and the value of that acre-foot is $2.4 million.

What is 1 acre foot of water?

An acre foot of water equals about 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land 1-foot deep. To put it another way, an acre foot of water is enough to flood a football field 1-foot deep (a football field is roughly an acre in size).

How much water is needed for an acre of land?

The amount of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot. This is equivalent to 43,560 cubic feet or 325,851 gallons. acres have more than one water source. Source: USDA NASS 2018 Irrigation and Water Management Survey (2017 Census of Agriculture).

How much is an acre foot of water worth in Texas?

Water rights on the North and Main Concho sell for $800 to $1,000 per acre-foot. Water rights on the South Concho sell for $1,000 to $1,500 per acre-foot.

How much does it cost to irrigate an acre of farm land?

Small systems which are operated by manual labor and gravity flow can cost as little as $50 and irrigate a small garden. Larger systems requiring pumps and permanent piping can cost from $1800 to $2500 an acre. All irrigation systems will cost you time to operate and manage.

Do farmers pay for groundwater?

Farmers using groundwater or diverting directly from a river according to a riparian water right likely must pay only their “own-supply costs.” Those costs will rise and fall with changes in energy prices and changes in groundwater levels or flow rates in rivers.

What does 3 acre-feet of water rights mean?

This is the length of the irrigation season. The other restriction is that no more than three acre-feet of water (977,550 gallons) may be applied to each acre for irrigation purposes during the irrigation season. (Note that the amount of water delivered to a landowner is usually less than the amount of the water right.

How much water is an inch of rain per acre?

about 27,154 gallons
One inch of rain falling on 1 acre of ground is equal to about 27,154 gallons and weighs about 113 tons. An inch of snow falling evenly on 1 acre of ground is equivalent to about 2,715 gallons of water.

How many gallons are in an acre-inch?

Acre-inch to Gallon (US) Conversion Table

Acre-inch [ac*in] Gallon (US) [gal (US)]
1 ac*in 27154.285714286 gal (US)
2 ac*in 54308.571428571 gal (US)
3 ac*in 81462.857142857 gal (US)
5 ac*in 135771.42857143 gal (US)

How do I buy water rights in Texas?

Landowners may obtain a water right by applying for a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). After obtaining a permit, the landowner can use surface water for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and other beneficial uses.

How do water rights work in Texas?

Texas water law. In Texas, water rights depend on whether the water is groundwater or surface water. Generally, Texas groundwater belongs to the landowner. Groundwater is governed by the rule of capture, which grants landowners the right to capture the water beneath their property.