Guía para entender los planes de sustentabilidad de aguas subterráneas de California

The document explains the framework of California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which requires local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) to achieve groundwater sustainability by 2040 (or 2042 for low-priority basins). It details the four main components of a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP): basin description, sustainable goals to avoid six 'undesirable outcomes', management projects, and monitoring plans. The guide emphasizes that sustainability is a social and technical definition determined by local community values. It provides a framework for understanding water budgets and hydrological models, stressing the need for open-source software and the integration of community values into technical data. Finally, it outlines pathways for public engagement, such as joining GSA boards or advisory committees, and lists critical questions to ensure transparency and accountability in the planning process.

• The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) mandates that local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) achieve sustainability by 2040, or by 2042 for basins designated as low priority.
• A Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) must include four primary elements: a description of the basin's current and future conditions (including a water budget), a sustainable goal to avoid six specific undesirable outcomes, management actions to reach that goal, and a monitoring plan.
• There are six defined 'undesirable outcomes' that GSPs aim to avoid: excessive reduction in groundwater storage, excessive decline in groundwater levels, excessive seawater intrusion, excessive degradation of water quality, excessive land subsidence, and excessive depletion of interconnected surface water.
• Sustainability is defined locally and is considered subjective, as communities must decide the level of acceptable damage or desired repair for each undesirable outcome through 'minimum thresholds' (numerical failure points) and 'measurable objectives'.
• Water budgets are used to calculate 'sustainable yield' (the amount of water that can be extracted without causing an undesirable outcome), which differs from 'safe yield' (which only ensures that inflows equal or exceed outflows to avoid storage reduction).
• Hydrological models are essential for spatial and temporal analysis and for testing management scenarios, but they cannot define community values or determine what constitutes an undesirable outcome.
• The law requires that hydrological models developed for GSPs after June 1, 2016, must use free, public-domain software to ensure transparency and accessibility.
• Climate change effects must be incorporated into hydrological models using a planning horizon of 50 years, utilizing various global climate models and emission scenarios.
• GSAs are legally obligated to encourage active participation from diverse social, cultural, and economic groups, including agricultural users, domestic well owners, environmental groups, and disadvantaged communities.
• The GSP approval process involves three steps: approval by the GSA board in a public meeting, submission to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) for evaluation, and potential intervention by the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) if the plan is deemed inadequate.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (2017). Guía para entender los planes de sustentabilidad de aguas subterráneas de California. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/10/ws-report-CAtoolkit-sp.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Guía para entender los planes de sustentabilidad de aguas subterráneas de California. 2017. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/10/ws-report-CAtoolkit-sp.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Guía para entender los planes de sustentabilidad de aguas subterráneas de California |date=September 2017 |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/10/ws-report-CAtoolkit-sp.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientists2017gua, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Guía para entender los planes de sustentabilidad de aguas subterráneas de California}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, year = {2017}, month = sep, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/10/ws-report-CAtoolkit-sp.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }