“Typically, modern irrigation can decrease demand, but we found that after some years demand may paradoxically increase,” said Mohammad Ghoreishi, first author of a paper, Peering into agricultural rebound phenomenon using a global sensitivity analysis approach, published in Elsevier’s Journal of Hydrology. “Due to modern irrigation, many farmers can switch to higher value crops and expand irrigation acreage to increase profits, which can increase agricultural water demand,” said Ghoreishi, a PhD candidate at the School of Environment and Sustainability (SENS) and a researcher at USask’s Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS).