Demographics, attitudes toward water conservation, and stated preferences for water conservation program or policy attributes among agricultural water users on Colorado's West Slope
Data files
Apr 14, 2026 version files 3.65 MB
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complete_deidentified_responses.csv
1.10 MB
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dce_results_long_format.csv
897.50 KB
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Paper_Survey.pdf
1.59 MB
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README.md
5.23 KB
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survey_headers.csv
53.32 KB
Abstract
Water conservation among agricultural water users is being promoted as an important tool for addressing water supply and management challenges in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Within the Upper Colorado River Basin, the State of Colorado dominates as a supplier and user of Colorado River Water. Agricultural production is the dominant water use sector in western Colorado. We surveyed agricultural water users on Colorado's West Slope to assess their demographics, farm and ranch characteristics, attitudes towards water conservation activities, and stated preferences for water conservation program or policy attributes. Survey responses were collected in 2023 and 2024 over the Internet using the Qualtrics survey platform and through distribution of paper surveys to addresses associated with agricultural lands in Colorado counties located west of the Continental Divide. The dataset consists of deidentified responses from 573 individuals self-identified as agricultural water users.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.m905qfvf5
Description of the data and file structure
Results presented here were generated by a survey designed to query water users' demographics, farm and ranch characteristics, and attitudes toward water conservation. The survey included a discrete choice experiment (DCE) that probed water users' stated choices for a suite of water conservation policy or program attributes. The DCE followed a Bayesian Multinomial Logit (MNL) D-efficient design intended to enhance statistical efficiency and improve estimation accuracy by selecting the optimal subset of possible choice alternatives that minimizes the determinant of the model parameter estimates' variance–covariance matrix. Survey responses were collected during 2023 and 2024. Participant recruitment followed a multi-channel strategy. Email invitations were sent through the mailing lists of conservation districts and other regional organizations. A paper version was also mailed to nearly 4,500 agricultural addresses in Colorado's West Slope region. Digital outreach to raise awareness about the study used targeted ads on Facebook and Twitter. Public notices of survey availability were also provided at meetings of Basin Roundtables, soil and water conservation districts, and regional water conferences. Survey results were stored in comma separated value (CSV) format. Data files included here are accompanied by a PDF of the paper version of the distributed survey.
Files and variables
File: Paper_Survey.pdf
Description: A paper version of the survey distributed to agricultural water users on Colorado's West Slope.
File: survey_headers.csv
Description: This file contains the mapping of the header values present in the complete_deidentified_responses.csv file to the text of individual questions administered in the survey.
Variables
- question_ID: The ID of the question included in the survey
- question_text: The text of the question associated with the ID
File: complete_deidentified_responses.csv
Description: This file contains the full set of deidentified survey responses, including results form the administered Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) in wide format. Each row represents a set of responses from a single survey respondent.
Variables
- resp.id: The unique identifier for each respondent
- See survey_headers.csv for complete description of remaining file headers.
- NOTE: Non-responses are recorded as NA values in numerical columns and as empty quote strings in character columns.
File: dce_results_long_format.csv
Description: This file contains the DCE results in long format for ease of use in analysis.
Variables
- resp.id: The unique identifier for each respondent. This is the primary key for joining to other data files.
- question: the ID of the choice sets (1-12) presented to the respondent
- alternative: the ID of the choices (1-3) contained within the choice set where choice #3 was always the status-quo or no-action alternative.
- conservationPractice: The irrigation reduction activity that would be contracted and enacted for a single irrigation season. Options include:
- Full Season Curtailment
- Split Season Curtailment
- Full Season Limited Irrigation
- compensationPerAcre: Payment for each acre of land placed under water conservation. Options include:
- $150
- $300
- $600
- $1200
- $1600
- committedAcreage: The portion of typically irrigated acreage allocated to water conservation program activities. Options include:
- 25 %
- 50 %
- 75 %
- 100 %
- eastSlopeMatch: Whether any conserved consumptive use will be matched in volume by curtailment of transmountain water diversions to the Front Range. Options are True/False.
- waterShepherding: Whether any conserved consumptive use water will be shepherded downstream past all other water users and controlled by the Upper Basin states to reduce risks of a Compact Call on the Colorado River. Options are True/False.
- alternativeSelected: The ID of the alternative selected from the choice set. Non-response values indicated as NA.
- optOut: Flag indicating whether the respondent elected the status quo option from the choice set. Options are True/False. Non-response values indicated as NA.
Human subjects data
The Colorado State University Institutional Review Board (FWA0000647) determined data collection activities associated with the project are exempt under 45CFR46.104(d). Participation in the study was strictly voluntary. All study participants were informed of the expected use of the data and were made aware that their deidentified responses would be combined with similar responses from others and made publicly available. All study participants provided consent to the collection and use of their responses in this manner. All personal identifier information, including names, addresses, and phone numbers, was removed from the data included here prior to its publication.