Conjunctive Water Management in Nebraska: Recharging Aquifers through Excess Surface Water Diversions

Nebraska faces the challenge of allocating variable water supplies between multiple competing interests. In order to maximize beneficial water use and minimize negative impacts on streamflows and groundwater levels, conjunctive water management strategies are employed throughout the state to take advantage of the strong connection between surface water and groundwater resources. Nebraska is fortunate to have expansive aquifers adjacent to most of its streams and a significant network of unlined irrigation canal systems to use for conjunctive management. The aquifers serve as storage reservoirs for recharged water and provide a conveyance mechanism for its return to the stream. In the Upper Platte River Basin the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, local natural resources districts, and irrigation districts, have cooperated to create successful outcomes through diversions into irrigation canals, recharge pits, and surface water reservoirs. This not only results in groundwater recharge, thus increasing water storage levels in the aquifer and groundwater discharge to streams, but also provides flood mitigation.