News & Insights: Sustainable Groundwater

Get insights and analysis from Water in the West researchers as well as the latest news about new Stanford water research and events focusing on western water issues.

September 17, 2015  | Water in the West  | Insights

Leon Szeptycki and Tara Moran

One year ago, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 into law. Commonly referred to as SGMA, the legislation created a statewide framework for sustainable groundwater management – and, potentially, regulation of groundwater pumping – for the first time in California’s history. The law does so by imposing a mandate for sustainable groundwater...

August 21, 2015  | Water in the West  | Insights

After three years of severe drought, the California legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014, which creates a statewide framework for groundwater regulation. This legislation came into effect on January 1, 2015, and presents local water agencies with significant opportunities and challenges. Those challenges and potential solutions were the topic of a 2015 Uncommon...

August 21, 2015  | Water in the West  | Insights

Leslie Willoughby

Surface water managers are increasingly turning to “enhanced decision support tools," models that are specifically designed to resolve disputes and help reach consensus based decisions.   But similar technologies have only recently come into play for making effective groundwater decisions. A new grant will fund a study of the role that data and models play in...

July 09, 2015  | Stanford News Service  | News

Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment jump-starts interdisciplinary projects around the world. Collaborative decision-making for a sustainable groundwater future to be studied by Janet Martinez (Law) and Rosemary Knight (Geophysics).

June 01, 2015  | Water in the West  | Insights

Janny Choy, Research Analyst, Water in the West

As California struggles through its fourth year of drought, it is worth remembering that other parts of the West are much drier than California and have been coping with water shortages for decades.  As the first state in the country to pass a comprehensive set of groundwater regulations in 1980, Arizona offers a potentially useful lens for its western neighbors managing increasing water...

April 02, 2015  | Water in the West  | Insights

Stanford News Service

The snowpack in California's mountains is at the lowest level ever recorded. The long-term effects of the drought could be devastating. Frank Gehrke, left, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the Department of Water Resources, points to a mark on the snow pack measuring pole that was the lowest previous snow pack level, as Gov. Jerry Brown, center, and Mark Cowin,...

December 05, 2014  | Stanford News  | News

Earlier this fall, a team led by Stanford geophysicist Rosemary Knight performed an ambitious experiment to determine the extent of ocean saltwater intrusion into underground freshwater in the Monterey Bay region.

November 21, 2014  | SF Gate  | Insights

New Op-Ed by Buzz Thompson explores how we can get the most out the recently passed $7.5B water bond.

October 27, 2014  | Water in the West  | Insights

It is human nature to fear the unknown.  If you are a water manager, your “fear list” may include earthquakes, climate change, having your water use made public and not least of all, new laws and regulations.  California has a law that is new and complex – the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.  At this point, many summaries of the new legislation have been developed such as...

October 13, 2014  | Water in the West  | Insights

  This past Wednesday (October 8) was a busy day for Rosemary Knight, a professor of geophysics in the Stanford School of Earth Sciences and senior fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Her morning began on a quiet stretch of beach along the coast of Monterey Bay. She wasn’t there to surf or whale watch like others, but rather to check in...

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