Ogallala Oases: Water Use, Population Redistribution, and Policy Implications in the High Plains of Western Kansas, 1980–1990

Abstract

Abstract Contrary to recent literature that portrays the High Plains as an over-exploited region of economic and demographic decline and as place that should be deprivatized, abandoned, and resotred to a buffalo commons, this study suggests that the irrigated Ogallala region is not dying. It is experiencing, instead, a major redistribution of population into nucleated Ogallala oases sustained by the presence of ample groundwater for irrigation. Although more remote rural areas with irrigated agriculture are losing population, they endure nonetheless as important components of the cultural landscape in their role as hinterlands for the Ogallala oases. This paper examines the relationship between proximity to groundwater use and population change in the Ogallala aquifer region of Kansas during the 1980s. The analysis focuses on three levels; the county, incorporated and census designated places, and rural census county subdivisions. The association between proximity to groundwater and population change is s...