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Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Although early environmental assessments concluded that the adoption of high-efficiency drip irrigation in arid basins uniformly reduced agricultural water consumption, subsequent hydrological studies have ______ that claim. Researchers found that while drip systems did indeed decrease water use on a per-acre basis, the resulting cost savings often encouraged farmers to expand their irrigated acreage or switch to more water-intensive cash crops. Consequently, total water depletion across entire watersheds frequently remained unchanged or even increased, showing that the technology's resource-saving potential is contingent on regional regulatory limits.