engineering

Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project

Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project rather than just read about it. In short: The Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project is an interbasin transfer project to provide water to eastern Arkansas for the purposes of agricultural water supply, aquifer recharge, prairie and wetland restoration, water conservation and waterfowl management. The project, conceived by the US Army Corps of Engineers' Memphis District and approved by US Congress in 1950, generally involves the pumping of water from the…

Key takeaways

Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project is an interbasin transfer project to provide water to eastern Arkansas for the purposes of agricultural water supply, aquifer recharge, prairie and wetland restoration, water conservation and waterfowl management. The project, conceived by the US Army Corps of Engineers' Memphis District and approved by US Congress in 1950, generally involves the pumping of water from the White River near DeValls Bluff into pipelines and canals throughout Arkansas's Grand Prairie, specifically to farmers in Arkansas, Lonoke and Prairie counties. The new water source is intended to relieve groundwater pumping from the Alluvial and Sparta aquifers that underlie the Prairie.

History Initially authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1950, the project received $6 million ($80.3 million in today's dollars) from Congress. The act has been in various stages of planning or design ever since. Deferred in 1980 due to a lack of a strong local sponsor, the Grand Prairie-White River Irrigation District was formed by local leaders to continue project development. In 1983, the Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation Commission requested the US Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District conduct a study to determine the economic feasibility of the project.

Opposition The project has encountered significant delays from a variety of groups voicing opposition to the project, including environmentalists, farmers, landowners, taxpayers and duck hunters. The project was also delayed significantly following the discovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker within the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in 2004.

Current status As of 2014, the lower half of the pump station has been constructed at DeValls Bluff. The White River Irrigation District has not obtained subscribers to receive the water once pumping commences. Costs continue to escalate, and the Corps of Engineers, along with State of Arkansas, have no way of projecting the final cost to complete the project to any certainty. Farmers are not willing to subscribe when the cost is unknown. Cost is a concern to farmers as a farmer's profit margins are already small. If the water can not be provided at a cost affordable to the farmers, there will not be any subscribers. On the other hand, if the project is not completed in the near future, there will not be any farm activity in the area as pumping water up from the aquifers is already becoming cost prohibitive. Without the project, at current pumping rates, the aquifers will no longer be a source of water and the farming industry may decline in the area; the economies of the farming communities may suffer.

See also United States portal Rice cultivation in Arkansas

Notes

Further reading Renew of Reports, Grand Prairie Region and Bayou Meta Basin, Arkansas (Report). Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District. July 1948. House Document No. 255, 81st Congress, 1st Session, "White and Arkansas Rivers and Tributaries, Grand Prairie Region, Arkansas," July 1949. House Document No. 308, 88th Congress, 2nd Session, Mississippi River and Tributaries, Grand Prairie Region and Bayou Meto Basin, Arkansas," Annex P, October 1959. Hydrogeology of a Part of the Grand Prairie Region, Arkansas. U. S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 1615-B (Report). Washington, D. C.: Department of the Interior. 1964. "Appendix F". Lower Mississippi Region Comprehensive Study. Land Resources. 1974. Final Watershed Plan and Environmental Impact Statement, Plum Bayou Watershed, Flat Bayou Portion (Report). Little Rock, AR: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service. 1981. Peralta, R. C.; Dutram, P. W. (September 1982). Assessment of Arkansas River Water Quality and Potential Quantities Required for Irrigation in the Bayou Meto Basin (Report). Fayetteville, AR: Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Arkansas. Peralta, R. C.; Dutram, P. W. (February 1983). Potential Use of Arkansas River Water for Irrigation in the Plum Bayou Watershed (Report). Fayetteville, AR: Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Arkansas. Gilmour, J. T.; Scott, H. D.; Baser, R. E. (March 1983). A Survey of Soils Irrigated with Arkansas River Water. Publication No. 96, Arkansas Water Resources Research Center (Report). Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas. "Estimated Potential Water Needs for the Eastern Grand Prairie Region by Irrigation Scheduling," R. C. Peralta and P. W. Dutram, Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR. December 1983. "Using Target Levels to Develop a Sustained Yield Pumping Strategy in Arkansas, a Riparian Rights State," Richard C. Peralta and Ann W. Peralta, Appendix to the State Water Plan, May 1984.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project

In research: Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Arkansas County, Arkansas, Buildings and structures in Arkansas, Interbasin transfer, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project in simple terms?

Why does Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project.