From the Ground Down: Understanding Local Groundwater Data Collection and Sharing Practices in California

Groundwater provides up to 60 percent of California’s water supply, contributes to stream flow, and supports many ecosystems. Despite its importance, groundwater went unregulated until passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) in 2014. This legacy resulted in fragmented management, inconsistent data and a broad range of management outcomes, which will make meeting the new legislation’s requirements a long and arduous task for many groundwater basins.
In the fall of 2015, Stanford University’s Water in the West Program and The Gould Center for Conflict Resolution conducted a groundwater data survey to (1) learn more about the current groundwater data collection, use and sharing practices across the state, and (2) identify some of the common data-related challenges that local groundwater agencies are likely to face during SGMA implementation.
Results from this survey suggest that many local agencies across California already have a strong foundation on which to build their groundwater monitoring networks for sustainable groundwater management, albeit with significant gaps. As agencies move toward the basin-scale coordination requirements under SGMA, it will be increasingly important that agencies focus on acquiring data using consistent collection and monitoring protocols to ensure that data can be readily integrated and shared.