I am sure that some people will question some of the historiography there, but Cadillac Desert is a book all about the history of water management of the great plains, from Kansas onwards.
TLDR: America has spent a whole lot of money trying to make land more productive for farming, including land where it probably doesn't make much economic sense once you account for the infrastructure costs.
TLDR: America has spent a whole lot of money trying to make land more productive for farming, including land where it probably doesn't make much economic sense once you account for the infrastructure costs.