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Unlike most states west of the 100th meridian, California has, until recently, never enacted a comprehensive set of regulations to govern consumptive use of groundwater resources, even though groundwater provides between 40 percent and 60 percent of the water used by residents, farmers, business, and municipalities in the state. That changed in 2014, when the California legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in response to one of the worst droughts in the state's history. The years between 2012 and 2014 had been so dry that surface water deliveries to the major agricultural areas of the San Joaquin Valley were cut to almost zero, forcing farmers to pump groundwater at unprecedented rates to make up the shortfall. This, in turn, caused groundwater levels to drop and domestic wells to go dry. SGMA was enacted to reverse this trend and bring the state's groundwater resources into sustainability.This thesis examines whether a key feature of SGMA - its focus on local control of groundwater management decisions - will frustrate the sustainability goals of the statute. By reviewing a representative sample of the Groundwater Sustainability Plans prepared in compliance with SGMA, the thesis analyzes how the local water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley differ in their approach to groundwater management when compared to local water agencies outside the San Joaquin Valley. This analysis indicates that much of the groundwater overdraft problem in California can be traced to a recent phenomenon where large farming interests in the San Joaquin Valley switched from annual row crops to permanent orchard crops, primarily almonds and pistachios. This change in crop mix has fundamentally altered water usage in the Valley, largely because almonds and pistachios require substantially more water than annual row crops.Almonds and pistachios, however, are highly profitable, and the farmers who switched to these crops show no interest in converting back to row crops just to save water or improve conditions within their respective subbasin. For this reason, the Groundwater Sustainability Plans prepared by water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley focus almost exclusively on new water supply projects and include few provisions that would address pumping behavior or crop mix. Outside the San Joaquin Valley, however, the water agencies seem more willing to embrace a wide array of actions to achieve sustainability, including pumping restrictions and land fallowing programs. Thus, SGMA appears to create a two-tiered system, one in which San Joaquin Valley farmers can continue to pump as before, while the rest of the overdrafted basins in the state engage in aggressive cutbacks. Without greater guidance and enforcement from the State Water Resources Board and the Department of Water Resources, this two-tiered system may cause SGMA to fail in its objective, which is to bring all overdrafted subbasins, including those in the San Joaquin Valley, into a sustainable condition.
Water scarcity, urban population growth, and deteriorating infrastructure are impacting water security around the globe. Struggling with the most significant drought in its recorded history, California faces all of these challenges to secure reliable water supplies for the future. The unfolding story of California water includes warnings and solutions for any region seeking to manage water among the pressures of a dynamic society and environment. Written by leading policy makers, lawyers, economists, hydrologists, ecologists, engineers, and planners, Sustainable Water reaches across disciplines to address problems and solutions for the sustainable use of water in urban areas. The solutions and ideas put forward in this book integrate water management strategies to increase resilience in a changing world. Contributors: John T. Andrew, Carolina Balazs, Celeste Cantú, Juliet Christian-Smith, Matthew Deitch, Caitlin Dyckman, Howard Foster, Julian Fulton, Peter Gleick, Brian E. Gray, Ellen Hanak, Maurice Hall, Michael Hanemann, Sasha Harris-Lovett, Matthew Heberger, G. Mathias Kondolf, Jay Lund, Damian Park, Kristen Podolak, John Radke, Isha Ray, David Sedlak, Fraser Shilling, Daniel Wendell, Robert Wilkinson, Cleo Woelfle-Erskine, Sarah Yarnell
Extensively modified over the last century and a half, California's San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary remains biologically diverse and functions as a central element in California's water supply system. Uncertainties about the future, actions taken under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) and companion California statues, and lawsuits have led to conflict concerning the timing and amount of water that can be diverted from the Delta for agriculture, municipal, and industrial purposes and concerning how much water is needed to protect the Delta ecosystem and its component species. Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta focuses on scientific questions, assumptions, and conclusions underlying water-management alternatives and reviews the initial public draft of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in terms of adequacy of its use of science and adaptive management. In addition, this report identifies the factors that may be contributing to the decline of federally listed species, recommend future water-supple and delivery options that reflect proper consideration of climate change and compatibility with objectives of maintaining a sustainable Bay-Delta ecosystem, advises what degree of restoration of the Delta system is likely to be attainable, and provides metrics that can be used by resource managers to measure progress toward restoration goals.