An Open Letter on Sustainable Groundwater Management from California Water Scientists

Transcription

1 8/25/14 An Open Letter on Sustainable Groundwater Management from California Water Scientists Dear Governor Edmund G. Brown and California State Legislators: As scientists working on water and water management in California, we are calling on you to take decisive, timely action to protect California's groundwater resources. To address current and future water challenges, the state must adopt a statewide approach to sustainable groundwater management this year. California's ongoing, record-breaking drought has highlighted many of the weaknesses of our water management system. California is the only state in the nation that does not comprehensively monitor or regulate groundwater, a dubious distinction that we can no longer afford. Groundwater is a vital resource in California, providing close to 60 percent of the state's water supply in a dry year. i Monitoring wells reveal that over the last several decades groundwater tables have dropped during dry periods and in some regions have not had a chance to recover. ii During the dry period, for example, it is estimated that we lost more than one million acre feet of groundwater storage in the Central Valley of California. iii Groundwater is a key buffer during drought, our saving account, and with longer and more-severe dry periods projected for the Western United States iv, improved groundwater management is increasingly critical for the state's water resource reliability, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. As temperatures have warmed over the past century, the prevalence and duration of droughts have increased in parts of the American West v and climate change is expected to continue that trend. California must act now to halt the negative consequences of excessive groundwater pumping currently being experienced across the state, including land subsidence, saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers, harm to ecosystems, increased conflicts among water users, and public health crises related to the loss or contamination of drinking-water supplies. While there is widespread acknowledgement of the need for improvement, effective groundwater management must be science based. We need timely, transparent, accurate data and information to gain a better understanding of the system, prevent problems, and formulate solutions. State law currently encourages, but does not require, groundwater monitoring and reporting. Finally, effective groundwater management depends on clear timelines for achieving and assessing results. As water scientists, we believe comprehensive, statewide groundwater management is needed this year. We support efforts to require local groundwater management entities to collect basic groundwater data and to develop plans to manage groundwater using sustainable yield metrics by This is a historic opportunity to bring California's groundwater policies into the twenty-first century. The time for change is now. i Department of Water Resources Public Update for Drought Response: Groundwater Basins with Potential Water Shortages and Gaps in Groundwater Monitoring. Sacramento, CA. ii Faunt, C. C., R.T. Hanson, K. Belitz, W. Schmid, S.P. Predmore, D.L. Rewis, K. McPhearson Groundwater availability of the Central Valley aquifer, California. US Geological Survey Professional Paper iii Famiglietti, J.S., M. Lo, S.L. Ho, J. Bethune, K.J. Anderson, T.H. Syed, S.C. Swenson, C.R. de Linage, and M. Rodell Satellites measure recent rates of groundwater depletion in California's Central Valley, Geophysical Research Letters, iv Karl, T.R., J.M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, New York: Cambridge University Press. v Konstantinos and Leetenmaier Trends in 20th century drought over the continental United States. Geophysical Research Letters,

2 The signers of this letter are scientists, researchers and economists who live or work in California and hold a Ph.D. All signers have expertise relevant to water use, water quality, or water management Lead Signers Roger C. Bales, Ph.D. Founding of Sierra Nevada Research Institute School of Martha Conklin, Ph.D. School of Catheys Valley, CA Juliet Christian-Smith, Ph.D. Climate Scientist Union of Concerned Scientists El Cerrito, CA W. Michael Hanemann, Ph.D. Chancellor s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Amir AghaKouchak, Ph.D. Assistant University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA Duncan Agnew, Ph.D. Scripps Institution of Oceanography Del Mar, CA Newsha Ajami, Ph.D. Director of Urban Water Policy Woods Institute for the Environment Stanford University San Francisco, CA Hilda Blanco, Ph.D. Interim Director, Center for Sustainable Cities Research Sol Price School of Public Policy University of Southern California Steve Blumenshine, Ph.D. Department of Biology Clovis, CA Adrian Borsa, Ph.D. Assistant Researcher Scripps Institution of Oceanography San Diego, CA Ray Anderson, Ph.D. Research Soil Scientist U.S. Salinity Laboratory USDA Agricultural Research Service Riverside, CA 2 Tim Duane, Ph.D. Department of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz

3 Julia Ekstrom, Ph.D. Science Fellow Natural Resources Defense Council San Francisco, CA James Famiglietti, Ph.D. Department of Earth System Science University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA Joshua Fisher, Ph.D. Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology Teamrat Ghezzehei, Ph.D. Associate Department of Life and Environmental Science Janice Gillespie, Ph.D. Department of Geosciences California State University, Bakersfield Bakersfield, CA Thomas Harmon, Ph.D. School of Peter Hernes, Ph.D. Land, Air and Water Resources William Horwath, Ph.D. Land, Air and Water Resources B. Lynn Ingram, Ph.D. Department of Earth and Planetary Science Moraga, CA Michael Kiparsky, Ph.D. Associate Director Wheeler Institute for Water Law and Policy School of Law James Kirchner, Ph.D. Emeritus Department of Earth and Planetary Science G. Mathias Kondolf, Ph.D. Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Laurel Larsen, Ph.D. Assistant Department of Geography Jay Lund, Ph.D. 3

4 Edwin Maurer, Ph.D. Associate Department of Civil Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Saad Merayyan, Ph.D. Associate Department of Civil California State University, Sacramento Sacramento, CA Tara Moran, Ph.D. Research Associate Groundwater Consortium, Water in the West Woods Institute for the Environment Stanford University Stanford, CA Susanne Moser, Ph.D. Director Susanne Moser Research & Consulting Kara Nelson, Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Lehua Pan, Ph.D. Scientist Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Doug Parker, Ph.D. Director California Institute for Water Resources University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Oakland, CA 4 Daniel Press, Ph.D. Executive Director Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems Olga T. Griswold Department of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz Vincent Resh, Ph.D. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management El Cerrito, CA Brinda Sarathy, Ph.D. Environmental Analysis Pitzer College Claremont, CA Eylon Shamir, Ph.D. Hydrologic Engineer Hydrologic Research Center La Jolla, CA James Sickman, Ph.D. Department of Environmental Sciences University of California, Riverside Riverside, CA Kumaraswamy Sivakumaran, Ph.D. Researcher School of Los Banos, CA Daniel Tartakovsky, Ph.D. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace San Diego, CA

5 Sally Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Samuel Traina, Ph.D. Department of Environmental Department of Life and Environmental Science Sandra Villamizar, Ph.D. Research Specialist School of Zhi Wang, Ph.D. Associate Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Fresno, CA Beth Weinman, Ph.D. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Fresno, CA William Yeh, Ph.D. Distinguished University of California, Los Angeles 5