Nature plays a critical role in regulating the planet’s climate, securing freshwater supplies, and supporting biodiversity—all essential for long-term business resilience. Water scarcity, soil degradation, and ecosystem collapse pose direct risks to supply chains and operations, driving companies to expand sustainability efforts beyond climate targets. This shift is reflected in the growing number of businesses — over 230 to date — that have committed to Science Based Targets for Nature, with more pledges through CERES Valuing Water Finance Initiative.
Regenerative agriculture is a key solution, offering a path to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, restore soil health, enhance climate resilience, and improve water supplies.
In this blog, we’ll explore the water-related co-benefits of regenerative agriculture and how Indigo Ag’s sustainability solutions are helping companies meet their water sustainability goals while building more resilient ecosystems and supply chains.
How regenerative agriculture can improve water stewardship
Agriculture accounts for 70% of freshwater withdrawals globally, yet it also offers a solution to many challenges we face. Regenerative, or “climate-smart,” farming solutions generate diverse and valuable water benefits. Cover crops, conservation tillage, and diverse crop rotations can restore the hydrologic function of productive land to a more natural state. Vegetation and residue provide a physical barrier that intercepts rainwater and stabilizes fertile topsoil. Healthy soils with higher organic matter content promote infiltration and better retain moisture and nutrients. These effects build resiliency. The benefits extend beyond the farm boundary too, and help to mitigate riverine flooding, replenish surface and groundwater resources, and restore water quality of the over 90,000 stream segments listed as impaired in the U.S. (USEPA, 2024).
Click here to view the Aqueduct Water Risk Filter from World Resources Institute. This tool identifies water risks and prioritize areas for action for companies building plans for water conservation.
Implementing regenerative practices makes farmers, businesses, and society more resilient to water crises. This, in turn, helps restore ecosystems, protect biodiversity, and safeguard human health and well-being.
| Common water-related issues and how regenerative farming can help | ||
| Issue | Overview | Ways regenerative farming can help |
| Inland flooding | Inland flooding is a significant issue in the U.S., resulting from heavy rainfall, rapid snowmelt, or infrastructure failures. Many areas are facing more frequent and intense storms, and damages are costing billions of dollars annually. Flooding poses health and safety risks to humans and wildlife, and pulses contaminants from landfills, waste lagoons, and other hot spots to waterbodies. | Regenerative farming practices enhance the water-holding capacity of fields. This slows and reduces runoff from cropland, which helps dampen peak flows and flooding severity. |
| Surface water stress and groundwater depletion | Several major aquifers in the U.S. are critically stressed due to unsustainable groundwater pumping that occurs when extraction exceeds the rate of replenishment. Prolonged droughts and overuse have also shrunk storage reservoirs at an alarming rate. These stresses endanger power and water supplies for cities, agriculture, and ecosystems. | Healthy soils with high organic matter are rich in biodiversity and sponge-like. This can help replenish groundwater reserves and reduce withdrawals for irrigation.
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| Sediment pollution | Heavy metals, pesticides, phosphorus and many other pollutants readily sorb to sediment, and are transported to waterbodies with sediment. Sediment contamination also increases the cost for potable water treatment. | Residue maintained on fields after harvest with conservation tillage stabilizes soils and buffers rain drop impact, preventing water and wind erosion. Cover crop roots help further bind the soil, providing additional weathering protection. |
| Nutrient pollution | Excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) feed nuisance algae that deplete dissolved oxygen crucial for aquatic life. About two-thirds of rivers and streams in the U.S. are rated poor or fair quality for nutrient pollution and biological condition according to EPA’s most recent national assessment (EPA, 2023). | Fields protected from erosion with improved moisture retention also limit nutrient losses to waterbodies. Cover crops store nutrients that may otherwise wash away during the non-growing season, and later decompose feeding cash crops. Diverse crop rotations and improved soil health can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. |
Carbon by Indigo’s water impact
Carbon by Indigo is a program for farmers who adopt new regenerative practices that sequester carbon, reduce on-field N2O emissions, and reduce fossil fuel use. In addition to generating nearly 300,000 verified carbon credits (representing an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions abatement or sequestration), farmers participating in the first three credit issuances have reduced surface runoff by more than 44 billion gallons. This equates to more than 150,000 gallons per Carbon credit generated.
Indigo Ag’s science and technology team can quantify water co-benefits by combining producer management data, gridded weather and soil datasets, and remote sensing technologies to model changes in runoff. Our approach models surface runoff daily at the field-scale both pre- and post-practice change. It considers key hydrologic drivers that influence runoff including precipitation, antecedent moisture, land management practices, soil permeability, and site topography. We corroborate our estimates with peer-reviewed studies. Companies can encourage water savings in rural communities by purchasing Carbon by Indigo credits, or target improvements around their business operations, such as water-intensive data centers by sponsoring bespoke water savings programs.
Source by Indigo’s water impact
Source by Indigo programs connect farmers growing a variety of row crops using sustainable practices with companies seeking to meet environmental goals within their supply chain.
Rice cultivation is responsible for significant water depletion: 40% of global irrigation water use is attributed to rice production alone. Since 2019, we’ve been partnering with leading companies to improve sustainability of rice production in the Mid-South.
Main aquifers within the Mid-South are designated critical groundwater areas due to heavy resource depletion caused by pumping that exceeds the aquifer’s sustainable yield. We’ve helped rice farmers in these regions implement changes to irrigation practices, saving over 23 billion gallons of water from 2019 to 2023.
Outcomes in our rice program are quantified using a monitoring-modeling approach that leverages verified grower data, site-specific weather and soils data, peer-reviewed research and literature data, and state-of-the-art field-scale water and greenhouse gas models. Companies participating can report on water savings within their value chains to achieve their sustainability goals.
Leveraging Indigo’s science & technology to achieve water sustainability goals
Given agriculture’s role as a major user of water, Indigo Ag is proud to leverage our technology and rigorous scientific approach to help companies achieve water stewardship goals. Our solutions span both irrigated and rainfed systems, and can be customized to focus on water quantity, quality, or both.
Regardless of whether a company is directly involved in agricultural production, companies that invest in Indigo’s sustainability programs drive meaningful change in regions with critical watersheds.
Reach out to our team today to learn more about our solutions that can support your water goals.
References
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2024. ATTAINS Water Quality Assessment GIS Dataset. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/waters-geospatial-data-downloads#NationalGeospatialDatasets
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2023. National Rivers and Streams Assessment 2018-2019 Technical Support Document. EPA 841-R-22-005. Office of Water and Office of Research and Development. Washington, D.C. https://www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys/nrsa