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Abstract
The effects of increasing natural gas prices on crop water use and net crop income under alternative crop prices were determined for a 32-county region of the Texas High Plains. An increase in natural gas prices could substantially reduce irrigation over the projection period, based on results from a recursive linear programming model. The price of natural gas, and not the quantity of remaining ground water reserves, may now become the restrictive factor. Irrigation of major crops--based on increasing natural gas prices--is projected to end in 1995 and annual net crop income to fall from $277 million to $164 million.