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Topic: Aquifers

Overview April 24, 2014

Aquifers

An aquifer is a geologic formation that stores, transmits, and yields significant quantities of water to wells or springs.

Aquifers come in two types. Some are formed in the space between porous materials such as sand, gravel, silt or clay and are known as alluvial aquifers or unconfined aquifers. However, in many places in California, there are aquifers beneath a rock layer that does not allow water to permeate in measurable amounts. These are known as confined aquifers.

Confined aquifers under pressure are known as artesian aquifers. This pressure can push water to the surface, which when drilled are called artesian wells.

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Aquafornia news March 23, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Opinion: Forget all the rain and snow, California is still short of water

During a winter of blizzards, floods and drought-ending downpours, it’s easy to forget that California suffers from chronic water scarcity — the long-term decline of the state’s total available fresh water. This rainy season’s inundation isn’t going to change that. … It’s all about groundwater. It is the long-term disappearance of groundwater that is the major driver behind the state’s steady decline in total available fresh water, which hydrologists define as snowpack, surface water, soil moisture and groundwater combined. … The gains made during wet years simply can’t offset the over-pumping during the dry years in between. In fact, the state’s groundwater deficit is now so large that it will never be fully replenished.
-Written by Jay Famiglietti, a global futures professor at Arizona State University. ​

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Aquafornia news March 17, 2023 The Weather Channel

How recent floods will recharge California groundwater

The State Water Resources Control Board has approved a request by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to divert floodwaters from the San Joaquin River so they can percolate down to aquifers. The plan would divert 600,000 acre feet of water — or more than the 191 billion gallons supplied to the city of Los Angeles each year. … Newsom also has signed an executive order temporarily lifting regulations and setting clear conditions for diverting floodwater without permits to recharge groundwater storage. Groundwater accounts for as much as 60% of California’s water supply during dry times. The aquifers usually refill when rain and floodwater percolates through the soil and into the basins. As California’s drought lingered, the basins weren’t recharging.

Related article: 

  • Ag Net West: Almond Update - Grower’s Positive Experience with Groundwater Recharge
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Aquafornia news March 15, 2023 The Sacramento Bee

California to store San Joaquin River floods as groundwater

Fresno County’s newest large-scale water storage project is happening below ground. With California inundated by rain and snow, state and federal water regulators hatched a plan to help replenish underground aquifers further depleted by heavy agriculture pumping during the recent drought. In an agreement announced last week, more than 600,000 acre-feet of floodwater from the San Joaquin River system will be diverted and allowed to soak back into the earth in areas with permeable soils and wildlife refuges. How much water is 600,000 acre-feet? Enough to overflow Millerton Lake, which stores 520,000 acre-feet at capacity. Or enough to meet the annual needs of more than 1 million average households.

Related articles: 

  • Capital Public Radio: Newsom issues executive order to divert more rain, snowmelt into groundwater basins
  • Spectrum News: Santa Monica has captured most of its rain this winter
  • Spectrum News: Farmers, researchers working to shore up state water woes
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Aquafornia news March 14, 2023 ABC 15 - Arizona

What it takes to import Harquahala Valley groundwater during water crisis

Mark Sigety has owned land in the Harquahala Valley near Tonopah since 2003. Since then, he says several investors have reached out to buy his half-acre plot along with other parcels in western Maricopa County. … The Harquahala Groundwater Basin is one of three in rural Arizona set aside specifically to import water to the Valley once water gets scarce. It’s known as an Irrigation Non-Expansion Area, or INA. It’s a place where the state or political subdivisions that own land eligible to be irrigated can pump groundwater and transport it into areas where groundwater is regulated in Arizona, known as AMAs, or Active Management Areas. The Phoenix AMA is one of them and covers land from west of Buckeye to Superior.

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Aquafornia news March 9, 2023 State Water Resources Control Board

News release: Petition approved to capture flood flows, recharge groundwater

To capitalize on strong flows resulting from higher-than-average snowpack, the State Water Resources Control Board approved a petition by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to divert over 600,000 acre-feet of San Joaquin River flood waters for wildlife refuges, underground storage and recharge. With this approval, the State Water Board has authorized nearly 790,000 acre-feet in diversions for groundwater recharge and other purposes since late December 2022 – the amount of water used by at least 1.5 million households in a single year.

Related articles: 

  • SLO New Times: State approves Paso Robles basin plan
  • Northern California Water Association: Blog: Celebrating Groundwater Awareness Week - Sustainable groundwater management in the Sacramento Valley
  • CA Department of Water Resources: Video - Integrated Regional Water Management Program – Supporting Groundwater Recharge in Fresno County
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Aquafornia news March 8, 2023 SJV Sun

Valley’s water managers celebrate winning key SGMA approval from Calif. regulators

In light of last week’s decisions regarding the groundwater sustainability plans, groundwater managers in Fresno County are celebrating.  The backstory: The California Department of Water Resources announced its decisions for the groundwater sustainability plans for 10 basins in the Central Valley, giving the green light to the Kings Subbasin and Westside Subbasin, both of which are anchored in Fresno County. Groundwater sustainability plans are required by 2014’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and govern how agencies in critically overdrafted areas achieve groundwater sustainability.  The big picture: The basins that received approval from the state will move forward to the implementation phase while those that were deemed inadequate will face direct oversight from the State Water Board.

Related articles: 

  • Ag Alert: State declares six aquifer plans as out of compliance
  • Food and Water Watch: Blog: In Spite of Recent Rain, California’s Central Valley Water Wells are Drying Up
  • Porterville Recorder: Eastern Tule groundwater sustainability plan considered inadequate by state
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Aquafornia news March 7, 2023 CA Department of Water Resources

News release: DWR and partners promote California’s hidden water resource during Groundwater Awareness Week 2023

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today kicked off National Groundwater Awareness Week 2023 with an engaging educational event held at the California Natural Resources Agency headquarters in Sacramento. The event featured an array of groundwater partners who provided presentations describing their work in groundwater and why groundwater is such an important water resource in California. After the presentations, the in-person audience visited educational stations where they engaged with the day’s speakers and other groundwater professionals.

Related articles:

  • Lodi News: Eastern San Joaquin groundwater plan gets a thumbs up
  • Agri-Pulse Communications: California to develop groundwater trading strategy
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Aquafornia news March 3, 2023 CalMatters

Friday Top of the Scroll: State rejects local plans for protecting San Joaquin Valley groundwater

State water officials on Thursday rejected six local groundwater plans for the San Joaquin Valley, where basins providing drinking and irrigation water are severely depleted from decades of intensive pumping by farms. The plans — submitted by local agencies tasked with the job of protecting underground supplies — outline strategies for complying with a state law requiring sustainable groundwater management. The Department of Water Resources deemed the plans inadequate … Groundwater depletion has hurt the San Joaquin Valley’s small, rural communities, home to many low-income Latino residents who have been forced to live on bottled water and drill deeper wells, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Related articles: 

  • Courthouse News Service: California groundwater management agencies falling behind on conservation goals
  • SJV Water: State rejects six San Joaquin Valley groundwater plans, which could bring enforcement action
  • Community Water Center: Department of Water Resources Rightfully Rejects Six Inadequate Groundwater Plans, While Approving Other Faulty Plans That Leave Drinking Water Users At Risk
  • California Department of Water Resources: California Advances Groundwater Sustainability with Release of Decisions for Management Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins
  • CBS – Sacramento: Severe storms not enough to recharge California’s groundwater
  • Ridgecrest Independent: Ridgecrest City Council to hear about groundwater less often
  • Ridgecrest Independent: IWVGA enters agreement with Navy, BLM
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Aquafornia news March 2, 2023 Water Education Foundation

Announcement: Join groundwater awareness event Monday, read about aquifer recharge & learn about groundwater on Central Valley Tour

As we approach next week’s National Groundwater Awareness Week, we have several groundwater-related events, articles and tours to share with you. Groundwater Awareness Event: Monday, March 6 Join the California Department of Water Resources, the Water Education Foundation and others on Monday at a special event in Sacramento to kick off next week’s National Groundwater Awareness Week. The 9 a.m. to noon event will include presentations, informational stations and demonstrations. For those who are unable to attend in person at the California Natural Resources Building’s Main Auditorium, 715 P St., the presentations will be available to view remotely.

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Aquafornia news February 27, 2023 Arizona Capitol Times

Water augmentation tested as Colorado River dwindles

While the lack of groundwater regulation plagues rural Arizona, there are proposed ways to create a larger supply in the region without depending on dwindling amounts from the Colorado River and groundwater. The Colorado River and local groundwater supplies around 40% of Arizona’s water. Lake Powell in northern Arizona and southern Utah is at record-low levels, as of Feb. 18. It is the lowest level it has been measured at since its construction in the 1960s. Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, called the Colorado River crisis Arizona’s most imminent water problem. 

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Aquafornia news February 22, 2023 The New York Times

Parched California misses a chance to store more rain underground

It sounds like an obvious fix for California’s whipsawing cycles of deluge and drought: Capture the water from downpours so it can be used during dry spells. Pump it out of flood-engorged rivers and spread it in fields or sandy basins, where it can seep into the ground and replenish the region’s huge, badly depleted aquifers. … Yet even this winter, when the skies delivered bounties of water not seen in half a decade, large amounts of it surged down rivers and out into the ocean. Water agencies and experts say California bureaucracy is increasingly to blame — the state tightly regulates who gets to take water from streams and creeks to protect the rights of people downriver, and its rules don’t adjust nimbly even when storms are delivering a torrent of new supply.

Related articles: 

  • Ag Alert: Farmers race to sink water into ground after storms
  • Red Bluff Daily News: Tehama County Groundwater Commission to go over well registration program
  • Modesto Bee: TID farmers will get full water allotments, and then some, thanks to wet weather 
  • Western Water Rewind: California Water Agencies Hoped A Deluge Would Recharge Their Aquifers. But When It Came, Some Couldn’t Use It 
  • Read more
  • View Original Article
Aquafornia news February 21, 2023 San Francisco Chronicle

Did winter storms replenish California’s depleted groundwater supplies? Here’s what data shows.

Winter storms have filled California’s reservoirs and built up a colossal Sierra snowpack that’s nearly twice its normal size for this time of year. But years of dry conditions have created problems far beneath the Earth’s surface that aren’t as easily addressed. Groundwater — found in underground layers containing sand, soil and rock — is crucial for drinking water and sustaining farms. During drought years, 60% of California’s annual water supply comes from groundwater. … The chart below shows how water on the surface and underground have changed over the years in California’s Central Valley — an agricultural hub that has seen some of the state’s most pressing issues related to groundwater. Compared with 2004, the amount of water on and below the ground in 2022 has dropped by nearly 55 cubic kilometers.

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Aquafornia news February 17, 2023 Western Water

California water agencies hoped a deluge would recharge their aquifers. but when it came, some couldn’t use it

It was exactly the sort of deluge California groundwater agencies have been counting on to replenish their overworked aquifers. The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade. Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to capture stormwater and bank it underground. … The barrage of water was in many ways the first real test of groundwater sustainability agencies’ plans to bring their basins into balance, as required by California’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The run of storms revealed an assortment of bright spots and hurdles the state must overcome to fully take advantage of the bounty brought by the next big atmospheric river storm.  

Related articles: 

  • Monterey County Weekly: Despite the recent storms, water storage efforts on the Peninsula underperformed. 
  • KCBX – Central California: Winter storms filled Santa Barbara County reservoirs, but groundwater and flooding challenges remain
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Western Water February 16, 2023 Nick Cahill California Groundwater Map WESTERN WATER-California Water Agencies Hoped A Deluge Would Recharge Their Aquifers. But When It Came, Some Couldn't Use It By Nick Cahill

California Water Agencies Hoped A Deluge Would Recharge Their Aquifers. But When It Came, Some Couldn’t Use It
WESTERN WATER IN-DEPTH: January storms jump-started recharge projects in badly overdrafted San Joaquin Valley, but hurdles with state permits and infrastructure hindered some efforts

An intentionally flooded almond orchard in Tulare CountyIt was exactly the sort of deluge California groundwater agencies have been counting on to replenish their overworked aquifers.

The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.    

Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland. Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.

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Western Water January 13, 2023 Nick Cahill Layperson's Guide to Water Conservation WESTERN WATER-In One of the Snowiest Places in the West, A Scientist Hunts for Clues to the Sierra Snowpack’s Future By Nick Cahill

In One of the Snowiest Places in the West, A Scientist Hunts for Clues to the Sierra Snowpack’s Future
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Central Sierra Snow Lab Manager Andrew Schwartz Aims to Help Water Managers Improve Tracking of Snowpack Crucial to California's Drought-Stressed Water Supply

Photo of Andrew Schwartz, manager and lead scientist at the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory.Growing up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in Antarctica.  

Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather, Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West, leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

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Western Water October 10, 2019 California Groundwater Map Gary Pitzer

Recharging Depleted Aquifers No Easy Task, But It’s Key To California’s Water Supply Future
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: A UC Berkeley symposium explores approaches and challenges to managed aquifer recharge around the West

A water recharge basin in Southern California's Coachella Valley. To survive the next drought and meet the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability law, California is going to have to put more water back in the ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging overpumped aquifers is no easy task.

Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though, landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally recharged.

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Western Water September 26, 2019 California Water Map Gary Pitzer

Often Short of Water, California’s Southern Central Coast Builds Toward A Drought-Proof Supply
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Water agencies in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo counties look to seawater, recycled water to protect against water shortages

The spillway at Lake Cachuma in central Santa Barbara County. Drought in 2016 plunged its storage to about 8 percent of capacity.The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.

Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.

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Announcement August 14, 2019

Stay Up To Date With Upcoming Groundwater Events Via Our Calendar
We track relevant tours, symposia, conferences and more for your convenience

Our event calendar is an excellent resource for keeping up with water events in California and the West.

Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant groundwater topics:

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Western Water March 28, 2019 California Groundwater Map Layperson's Guide to Groundwater Gary Pitzer

As Deadline Looms for California’s Badly Overdrafted Groundwater Basins, Kern County Seeks a Balance to Keep Farms Thriving
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: Sustainability plans required by the state’s groundwater law could cap Kern County pumping, alter what's grown and how land is used

Water sprinklers irrigate a field in the southern region of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County.Groundwater helped make Kern County the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.

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Western Water February 28, 2019 California Groundwater Map Layperson's Guide to Flood Management Gary Pitzer

Southern California Water Providers Think Local in Seeking to Expand Supplies
WESTERN WATER SIDEBAR: Los Angeles and San Diego among agencies pursuing more diverse water portfolio beyond imports

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Desalination Plant in Carlsbad last December marked 40 billion gallons of drinking water delivered to San Diego County during its first three years of operation. The desalination plant provides the county with more than 50 million gallons of water each day.Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.

In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)

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Western Water February 28, 2019 Groundwater Education Bundle Gary Pitzer

Imported Water Built Southern California; Now Santa Monica Aims To Wean Itself Off That Supply
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: Santa Monica is tapping groundwater, rainwater and tighter consumption rules to bring local supply and demand into balance

The Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility (SMURRF) treats dry weather urban runoff to remove pollutants such as sediment, oil, grease, and pathogens for nonpotable use.Imported water from the Sierra Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on imported water.

Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s, Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.

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Western Water January 17, 2019 Layperson's Guide to the Central Valley Project San Joaquin River Restoration Map Gary Pitzer

Key California Ag Region Ponders What’s Next After Voters Spurn Bond to Fix Sinking Friant-Kern Canal
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Subsidence chokes off up to 60% of canal’s capacity to move water to aid San Joaquin Valley farms and depleted groundwater basins

Water is up to the bottom of a bridge crossing the Friant-Kern Canal due to subsidence caused by overpumping of groundwater. The whims of political fate decided in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the 152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.

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Western Water January 4, 2019 Douglas E. Beeman Douglas E. Beeman

Women Leading in Water, Colorado River Drought and Promising Solutions — Western Water Year in Review

Dear Western Water readers:

Women named in the last year to water leadership roles (clockwise, from top left): Karla Nemeth, director, California Department of Water Resources; Gloria Gray,  chair, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; Brenda Burman, Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner; Jayne Harkins,  commissioner, International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S. and Mexico; Amy Haas, executive director, Upper Colorado River Commission.The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.

These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.

We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:

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Western Water October 19, 2018 Klamath River Watershed Map Layperson's Guide to Groundwater Gary Pitzer

California Leans Heavily on its Groundwater, But Will a Court Decision Tip the Scales Against More Pumping?
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Pumping near the Scott River in Siskiyou County sparks appellate court ruling extending public trust doctrine to groundwater connected to rivers

Scott River, in Siskiyou County. In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.

Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.

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Western Water October 5, 2018 Douglas E. Beeman Douglas E. Beeman

What Would You Do About Water If You Were California’s Next Governor?
WESTERN WATER NOTEBOOK: Survey at Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit elicits a long and wide-ranging potential to-do list

There’s going to be a new governor in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.

So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?

That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.

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Western Water May 18, 2018 Layperson's Guide to Groundwater Gary Pitzer

Could the Arizona Desert Offer California and the West a Guide to Solving Groundwater Problems?
WESTERN WATER SPOTLIGHT: Environmental Defense Fund report highlights strategies from Phoenix and elsewhere for managing demands on groundwater

Skyline of Phoenix, ArizonaAs California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.

Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.

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Western Water May 4, 2018 Layperson's Guide to Groundwater Gary Pitzer

Novel Effort to Aid Groundwater on California’s Central Coast Could Help Other Depleted Basins
WESTERN WATER Q&A: Michael Kiparsky, director of UC Berkeley's Wheeler Water Institute, explains Pajaro Valley groundwater recharge pilot project

Michael KiparskySpurred by drought and a major policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of recovery.

Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner that reflects its original intent.

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Aquapedia background September 12, 2016

Runoff

Snowmelt and runoff near the California Department of Water Resources snow survey site in the Sierra Nevada east of Sacramento.Runoff is the water that is pulled by gravity across land’s surface, replenishing groundwater and surface water as it percolates into an aquifer or moves into a river, stream or watershed.

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Aquapedia background September 8, 2016

Springs

Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly into other water bodies. They can also be considered the consequence of an overflowing aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.

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Western Water Magazine January 1, 2014

Overdrawn at the Bank: Managing California’s Groundwater
January/February 2014

This printed issue of Western Water looks at California groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by local, regional and state management. For more background information on groundwater please refer to the Founda­tion’s Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.

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Western Water Magazine March 1, 2013

Nitrate and the Struggle for Clean Drinking Water
March/April 2013

This printed issue of Western Water discusses the problems of nitrate-contaminated water in small disadvantaged communities and possible solutions.

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Western Water Magazine May 1, 2011

Preserving Quantity and Quality: Groundwater Management in California
May/June 2011

This printed issue of Western Water examines groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the resource.

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Western Water Magazine July 1, 2010

Saving it For Later: Groundwater Banking
July/August 2010

This printed issue of Western Water examines groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable benefits but not without challenges and controversy.

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Western Water Magazine September 1, 2012

Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Quality: A Cause for Concern?
September/October 2012

This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the Groundwater Resources Association of California.

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Video May 27, 2014

A Climate of Change: Water Adaptation Strategies

This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an excellent overview of climate change and how it is already affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are underway to plan and adapt to climate.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Water Cycle Poster

Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants, rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation. Excellent for elementary school classroom use.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014 Groundwater Education Bundle

California Groundwater Map
Redesigned in 2017

California Groundwater poster map

Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface water.

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Publication May 20, 2014 California Groundwater Map

Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater
Updated 2017

The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication that provides background and perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the history of its use in California.

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Publication May 20, 2014

Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law
Updated 2020

The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of California water rights.

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