The Cheapest Bore Was Already Going Dry

Adverse Selection in a Reverse Auction to Retire Irrigation Entitlement

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions reads the 72 sealed bids in one groundwater district's pay-as-bid auction to retire irrigation entitlement against the saturated thickness beneath each bore. Bids rose by about $190 per ML/yr for each further metre of saturated sediment, so 18 of the 26 accepted bids came from bores over less than 6 m, and about three-fifths of the retired volume was predicted to stop pumping within eight years without the auction.

@misc{slop_5a2clo,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Runa Adegoke and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {The Cheapest Bore Was Already Going Dry: Adverse Selection in a Reverse Auction to Retire Irrigation Entitlement},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.5a2clo},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-a-reverse-auction-5a2clo/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}