Groundwater Management In California

In 2014, “groundwater makes up 60 percent of California’s water use” (Governor Brown Changes, 2014).

Undoubtedly, Groundwater plays a significant role in California water supply. During a normal year, 30% of the state 's water supply comes from groundwater. In times of extreme drought, groundwater consumption can rise to 60% or more. Even though groundwater is more evenly distributed, over half of the groundwater is unable to be extracted due to the high pumping cost. The largest groundwater reservoirs are found in the Central Valley, with the majority of the supply existing as runoff that seeps into the aquifer.

California has always had a warm climate, yet its supply of water has rarely been affected. In 2014 California’s water shortage issue truly began. Due to low amounts of snow in the winter in recent years, California has tried to equal out these shortages by drilling water from underground aquifers. Yet, underground aquifers recharge much slower than surface water sources. California has already made significant drawbacks to attempt to limit the amount of water they use, so these aquifers can recharge. But still resources continue going down and the Central Valley Aquifer’s water level is rapidly declining. Luckily, on April 7, 2017 the drought stage of emergency in California was ended. Yet the issue isn’t truly resolved. Glen MacDonald

Arizona has an incredibly large dependence on the Colorado River and groundwater. In fact, 39% of all water usage in Arizona is comprised of Colorado River water. Any dependence of that scale on any resource that originates in another area is always a major risk, as any major disaster or drastic change to the source of the river can cripple the state’s water supply. Furthermore, while Arizona does house the majority of the Lower Basin of the Colorado, the Colorado’s Upper Basin is shared between 4 other states, all with their own water needs and all with a susceptibility to drought. On the other hand, another 40% of all water Arizona uses is from groundwater sources. However, the Colorado River and these groundwater sources in the Colorado River basins have lost over 65 cubic kilometers of water over the last 9 years, with nearly 2/3 of it from groundwater loss due to over-pumping. This is because

Envision yourself, about to complete a straightforward, everyday thing such as washing the dishes, suddenly to your surprise there is no water coming out of the faucet. Well for the civilians of East Porterville this is their reality. California has always had very lenient and ineffective groundwater regulations. Today, this has become a major issue, especially with California's severe drought. The regulation of the aquifer is a necessity because cleanliness is a basic human right and by not regulating the groundwater and leaving civilians with no working water, that right is taken away. The right to bathe, wash your hands, and have a working toilet is simply no more. Furthermore there are scientific statements, proving that excessively pumping groundwater will lower the water levels, which will likely lead to the land level sinking as well.

Water resources in the state of California have deteriorated drastically as a result of the current drought event in the west coast of the United States. This has resulted in insufficient supplies of water to residents of southern California, as well as the devastation of wildlife and aquatic ecosystems that are characteristic of this area. This policy analysis will provide the context of the issue, as well as possible solutions, followed by a proposed policy plan to reach the policy goal of equitable and reliable water allocation in the state of California, drought resilience, as well as restoration of the destroyed ecosystems.

My opinion is that California should not regulate groundwater because of farmers and financially. A Farmer would need more water for their crops, animals , accordingly themselves. That is a large amount of water , I do not think that is fair because what would happen if the farmers ran out of water ;they would have to use other residents water. Farmers would have to buy less pickups,employing less people, moreover buying less tractors.In source 1 it says that “the Farmers feel very disconnected with the

Imagine having to go outside every time one needs to use the restroom. There has been a drought going on in California for the past four years. There is a feud for water between farmers, citizens, and the drillers who get drain the water. The drought is a damaging issue that is affecting the lives of many. Therefore, California’s government should pass laws to manage how aquifers are to be properly used.

Groundwater is one of the most important natural resource in the nation, specifically in the Central Valley. In California, many people are pumping a lot more water because of the California drought and groundwater is a good resource for the farmers to harvest their crops. However, the main issue today is that in the Central Valley is that the land is sinking faster and faster due to the demand of pumping more water from the ground. The ground sinking in California isn’t recent, but it has been going an ongoing issue for over decades. Therefore, the land sinking has background history, but many studies and researchers didn 't take it as a warning until recently, and as a result it has been getting worse. The land sinking occurring in the Central Valley can cause damages to our communities such as bridges and roads cracking and can even go as far as cracking irrigation canals. These damages can cost millions of dollars to recover and rebuilding damages. On the other hand, the ground sinking has already destroyed canal linings, which will cost millions of dollars to repair. With that being the case, imagine all the other damages that the ground sinking will cause and cost to fix them. For these reasons, the state of California needs to start finding possible solutions to prevent the ground sinking from further sinking and to prevent more damages to the Central Valley. Solutions that might include encouraging the community to

Should California regulate groundwater? In my opinion, I think that farmers shouldn’t be able to get water from underground because other farmers are sucking up all the underground water. I had read an article that was talking about if they should let farmers be able to get water from underground. The article’s that I have read was that they think they shouldn’t because farmers would get gallons of water from underground. The state should regulate groundwater.

Organic ranchers and dairy farmers in California also feel the effects of the drought. They rely on green pasture to feed their animals a healthy diet. Due to the lack of rain, the pasture are drying up and the ranchers have to purchase supplemental organic hay from other states. In an attempt to fund the purchasing of this out of state hay, the organic farmers are selling herds to businesses for hamburger meat and the small

Currently California is facing a water shortage. The issue has been addressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in February. He called for all state agencies to find the way to help in the statewide water shortage. This is California’s third consecutive year of drought and last spring and summer was the worst of the season because it had the lowest amount of water recorded and California’s reservoirs were at their lowest point as well which did not help in the water shortage. Many agencies have been acquired to find possible solutions to the water shortage, the Department of Water Resources has been directed to find solutions to the problem as well as asking people to conserve water.

From the groundwater basins it is estimated that 16,500 TAF of groundwater are extracted annually, which accounts for 38% of the water supply in the state (California Department of Water Resources California's Groundwater Update 2013: A Compilation of Enhanced Content for California Water Plan Update 2013). Despite the number of basins in the state, each basin is somewhat unique but, have been classified into the Central Valley aquifer system, the coastal aquifers, the Northern California basin-fill aquifers, and the eastern Sierra Nevada and the California Desert aquifers (California Department of Water Resources California's Groundwater Update 2013: A Compilation of Enhanced Content for California Water Plan Update 2013). In Figure 1, the location of the major groundwater basins and subbasins in California have been identified as the areas shaded in

. “California is home to one of the most extensive water supply systems in the nation.” The state’s water supply system consist of over 1,000 reservoirs, hundreds of groundwater basins and many local and regional water conveyance systems. It is a system that is quite remarkably engineered to say the least (California's Water: California Water Systems)

Groundwater is a primary source of water for farmers and many citizens in california.But it causes ground sinkage and creates a risk for sinkholes. Groundwater is needed, but it does need at least some sort of restriction or regulation because people pump as much as they want with no restraint. Pumping and drilling groundwater causes major safety problems for the state of california. One of the consequences for drilling wells is that the ground can sink, which may lead to many more sinkholes in california. These are the main reasons groundwater and well drilling should be regulated in the state california.