Blog: How is SGMA affecting growers’ planting and drilling decisions?
California is now ten years into a revolution in groundwater management. In 2014, the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) which requires newly formed local groundwater sustainability agencies to develop long-term plans to reduce overdraft by 2040. To date, more than 250 local agencies have written and begun implementing groundwater sustainability plans, with more than 100 plans in action. This has taken enormous effort and represents a significant departure from the prior status quo for groundwater management in California. Many wonder, however, if SGMA is affecting behavior around the use of the groundwater resource yet. Are farmers making decisions around planting or drilling new groundwater wells with future SGMA reductions in mind? If so, are they switching away from permanent crops that may not have available water through 2040? We set out to answer those questions with publicly available data.