Regulating Groundwater in California: Will Groundwater Sustainability Agencies Change the Landscape?

摘要

While SGMA is new to California, the idea of ground-water management in the state is not so new. More than 50 years ago, a treatise noted that, "In the further development of our water economy, planned management and integration seem not only desirable, but essential. Organization of course is necessary; forms of organization, including the public district, are available." Twenty years later, in 1977, a staff report to an executive commission reviewing the state's water rights law concluded that, "A serious management problem confronting existing districts is that districts often do not have jurisdiction over a manageable portion of a groundwater basin."