190 THE FUTURE OF ARID LANDS 
it will bear on the place of irrigation in “wise allocation of available 
water.” It also will touch upon a few of the many opportunities 
to increase use of existing water and thereby to increase 
production. 
I should like to preface my remarks on these subjects by recog- 
nizing the impressive magnitude and difficulty of the tasks ahead 
of us. While noting the great things accomplished, we must realize 
that our future endeavor becomes ever larger and more difficult 
in direct proportion to the increasingly severe demands on our 
water resources. New research tools are needed, and we must make 
better use of the old ones to meet the challenges of the future. 
Sociologic and economic research and engineering and scientific 
research must advance rapidly and keep pace with each other if 
we are to plan properly for the complex conditions of the future. 
Major Water Uses 
There can be no challenge to the ultimate goal, in any arid realm 
on the globe, to achieve maximum beneficial use of all available 
water supplies. There is little latitude in the allocation of such 
limited water resources—direct use of water by man for his direct 
benefit is the highest possible beneficial use and comes first. Mu- 
nicipal and domestic uses therefore usually assume the first claim 
on available water supplies. 
The second claim may be for industrial and agricultural use. 
All these uses should be considered in the planning for utilization 
of any water supply. At the time the engineering works are con- 
structed to retain water through storage or to divert it to imme- 
diate use, the irrigation allocation may be paramount. As time 
passes, the municipal use may increase and this future possibility 
should be recognized in planning water utilization projects. 
Agricultural purposes are the largest single consumer of water 
in the water-deficient areas of this country and of the world. Irri- 
gation is a principal use of land in the 17 western states in this 
country, where the land area totals 1.1 billion acres. Of these acres, 
some 42 million are considered susceptible to irrigation, and some 
25 million are already under irrigation. The total water supply 
averages about 392 million acre-feet annually. Of this water, only 
