Category: Best of the Notebook

DR. JEFF MOUNT: The Consequences of Sustainable Groundwater Management

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

In 2014 California enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) which mandates that areas that depend upon groundwater achieve sustainability by 2040.  Meeting the requirements of SGMA will mean a net reduction in groundwater overdraft of about 2 million acre-feet per year. The social, economic and environmental consequences—intended or otherwise—of this change in water policy are vast. Dr. Jeffrey Mount […]

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GROUNDWATER RIGHTS PRIMER: What Agencies & Project Developers Need to Know

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

A seminar at McGeorge School of Law takes a deep dive into groundwater rights and SGMA California depends on groundwater for a major portion of its annual water supply, and sustainable groundwater management is essential to a reliable and resilient water system. In recognition of this, the legislature passed a three-bill package known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in […]

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What’s the Potential for Increased Groundwater Replenishment in California?

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

Panel at ACWA highlights state efforts to scale up Flood Managed Aquifer Recharge, survey on groundwater recharge in the Central Valley, and ACWA’s groundwater replenishment initiative With implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) fully underway, the newly formed Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) now turn their attention to developing Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) for their basins.  For basins that […]

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Earthquake Resilience of Southern California’s Water Distribution Systems

Best of the Notebook, News and Features

All the major water infrastructure bringing in water to Southern California cross the San Andreas fault at least once, sometimes multiple times.  What would happen in the event of an earthquake?  UCLA’s Dr. Jon Stewart (and others) have been conducting research to find out. California is earthquake country, renowned for being one of the most seismically active regions in the […]

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DR. ANDY FISHER: Enhancing groundwater recharge with stormwater

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

Dr. Andy Fisher discusses how distributed stormwater recharge projects in the Pajaro Valley can help to address groundwater overdraft Dr. Andy Fisher is a professor at UC Santa Cruz and Director of UC Water, as well as the founder of the Recharge Initiative, a focused effort to protect, enhance, and improve the availability and reliability of groundwater resources.  Dr. Fisher […]

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CA WATER POLICY CONFERENCE: Salty buildup: The threat to California’s water

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

Panel discusses the pervasive problem of salinity and irrigated agriculture, and what can be done about it Salinity is a slow-moving but critical problem.  It is most challenging in regions that have constrained drainage; it can be exacerbated when imported water brings salts into the basin; imported food and other raw materials can add to the problem.  If salts are […]

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SGMA IMPLEMENTATION: Sharing Groundwater: A Robust Framework and Implementation Roadmap for Sustainable Groundwater Management in California

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

“If you focus with pride in building the best water allocation system you possibly can have, rather than saying SGMA is a problem, you’ll see it as the smartest thing you ever got into,” says Mike Young Undoubtedly for some, the specter of the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is a fearsome and expensive thing, fraught with difficulties […]

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CA WATER COMMISSION: Local perspectives on groundwater management

Best of the Notebook, Meetings

A look at how GSA formation is going in the Pajaro Valley, Yolo County, and Sacramento regions With the deadline to form groundwater sustainability agencies looming just weeks in the future, at the April meeting of the California Water Commission, commissioners heard from three groundwater managers about how implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is playing out in their […]

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JUSTICE RONALD B. ROBIE: The State Water Resources Control Board: How it All Started

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

Justice Ronald B. Robie has had a profound influence on the development of water and environmental law in California.  Justice Robie served as a judge since 1983 and joined the Court of Appeal in 2002.  While he was a student at McGeorge in 1967, he served on the legislative staff to the Assembly Committee on Water, and had an integral […]

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PANEL DISCUSSION: Implications of SGMA implementation: Growers’ perspectives

Best of the Notebook, Conferences and Seminars

How will sustainable groundwater management play out on the ground?  Will land be fallowed?  Can yields be somehow increased to make up for lost production? Panel of growers give their perspectives The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires the creation of local agencies to develop and implement plans to manage their groundwater basins sustainably within 20 years.  Sustainable groundwater management is […]

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