Developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires that a Groundwater Sustainability Agency prepare a Groundwater Sustainability Plan that lays out the path that the basin will take to achieve sustainable groundwater management within 20 years. The path for preparing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan is discussed below.

​Step 1: Notice of Intent to Prepare a Groundwater Sustainability Plan

The first step for a Groundwater Sustainability Agency to prepare a Groundwater Sustainability Plan is to notify the Department of Water Resources.  Notification to the Department should contain general information about the process for developing the plan including how interested stakeholders may participate. This information must also be posted on the Groundwater Sustainability Agency’s website.

Step 2: Engage with the stakeholders in the basin

SGMA requires GSAs to consider the interests of many beneficial users and uses of groundwater, including overlying groundwater rights holders (both agricultural users and domestic well owners), municipal well owners, public water systems, local land use planning agencies, environmental users of groundwater, surface water users, the federal government, Native American tribes, and disadvantaged communities (DACs).​

Learn more about stakeholder engagement by clicking here.

Step 3: Describe the basin

One of the first steps in developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan is to describe the basin, also known as ‘basin setting’.  The regulations require GSAs to undertake four main tasks:

Develop a hydrogeologic conceptual model

​The basin setting is summarized in a hydrogeological conceptual model, which describes a basin’s hydrology, land use, geology, water quality, and aquifer structure. The hydrogeologic conceptual model must have both a narrative and graphical form.  For more information, click here for the Hydrologic Groundwater Modeling page at the Groundwater Exchange.

Describe groundwater conditions

Current and historical and groundwater conditions in a basin must be developed using the best available science and must include information about groundwater elevation data, seawater intrusion, groundwater quality issues, land subsidence, interconnected surface waters, and groundwater dependent ecosystems.

Develop a water budget

GSPs must include a water budget for the basin that provides an accounting and assessment of the total annual volume of groundwater and surface water entering and leaving the basin, including historical, current and projected water budget conditions, and the change in the volume of water stored. Water budget information must be reported in both tabular and graphical form. ​ For more information on water budgets, visit the Groundwater Exchange’s Water Budget page.

Describe management areas

GSAs may choose to have one or more management areas in their basin. Management areas may define different minimum thresholds and be operated to different measurable objectives than the basin at large, provided that undesirable results are defined consistently throughout the basin.  For more information on management areas, read GSP Regulations ​pertaining to management areas.

Step 4: Establish sustainable management criteria

Achieving sustainable groundwater management under SGMA requires GSAs to establish a basin-wide sustainability goal, and avoid the six Undesirable Results (URs).

Developing minimum thresholds (the point below which URs occur)  and measurable objectives are required components a sustainability goal.

Define the sustainability goal

Every basin subject to SGMA must develop a basin-wide sustainability goal that culminates in the absence of undesirable results within 20 years of GSP implementation. The sustainability goal must include a plan and measures to ensure it is met within 20 years of a plan’s implementation and maintained over the 50-year planning horizon.

Develop minimum thresholds

Minimum thresholds are set using a numeric value that represent a point in the basin that, if exceeded, may cause undesirable results.  Development of minimum thresholds is required at the local level using information developed in the hydrogeologic conceptual model, the description of current and historical groundwater conditions, and the water budget.

Plans must be developed to avoid the six undesirable results

• • • • • Chronic lowering of groundwater levels
        • Groundwater storage reduction
        • Land subsidence
        • Seawater intrusion
        • Degradation of water quality
        • Interconnected surface water depletions and Groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs)

Measurable objectives

Groundwater Sustainability Plans should set one or more measurable objective for each “sustainability indicator,” or each of the undesirable results. Measurable objectives should include interim milestones set at five-year intervals. The goal is eliminating undesirable results within 20 years of implementation of the plan (see below for definition).

Key publications

Click here for articles at Maven's Notebook on setting sustainable management criteria.

• Notebook Sustainable management criteria posts

Notebook Sustainable management criteria posts

GSA SUMMIT: Setting Sustainable Management Criteria: It’s easy, isn’t it?

ON THIS PAGE ...

• ​Step 1: Notice of Intent to Prepare a Groundwater Sustainability Plan
• Step 2: Engage with the stakeholders in the basin
• Step 3: Describe the basin
  • Develop a hydrogeologic conceptual model
  • Describe groundwater conditions
  • Develop a water budget
  • Describe management areas
• Step 4: Establish sustainable management criteria
  • Define the sustainability goal
  • Develop minimum thresholds
  • Plans must be developed to avoid the six undesirable results
  • Measurable objectives
• Key publications
  • Draft Sustainable Management Criteria BMP (DWR)
  • Measuring What Matters Setting Measurable Objectives to Achieve Sustainable Groundwater Management in California
  • GSP regulations pertaining to sustainable management criteria
• Step 5: ​​Incorporating Climate Change
  • Key publications
    • Resource Guide:  DWR-Provided Climate Change Data and Guidance for Use During Groundwater Sustainability Plan Development
    • Guidance for Climate Change Data Use During Groundwater Sustainability Plan Development
    • SGMA Climate Change Resources
    • GSP regulation pertaining to water budgets and climate change
• Step 6: Avoiding undesirable results
• Step 7: Define projects and actions
• Step 8: Monitoring and data management
  • Key publications
    • BMP 1: Monitoring Protocols Standards and Sites
    • BMP 2: Monitoring Networks and Identification of Data Gaps
    • GSP Regulation requirements for monitoring networks
• Step 9: Interbasin Agreements and Coordination Agreements
• Step 10: Submit the completed plan to the Department of Water Resources
  • Key resources
    • Checklist for GSP Submittal
    • How to submit comments on GSPs submitted to DWR
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The details of how a groundwater sustainability plan will be implemented are defined by the setting of sustainable management criteria (or SMC). With several undesirable results to consider, a range of technical analyses to perform, data gaps yet to be filled, and potentially conflicting stakeholder interests, the process to establish sustainable management criteria is often involved and challenging. At the Groundwater Resources Association’s 3rd annual GSA Summit, a panel reviewed how the process went for the groundwater sustainability plans […] The post GSA SUMMIT: Setting Sustainable Management Criteria: It’s easy, isn’t it? appeared first on MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK | California Water News Central.Sustainable management criteria Archives ~ MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK | California Water News CentralJul 22 2020

SGMA IMPLEMENTATION: Developing Sustainable Management CriteriaMinimum thresholds, measurable objectives, undesirable results: A panel of consultants discuss the specifics of how their GSAs determined sustainable management criteria The passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 requires that groundwater basins be managed such that the use of groundwater can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without causing undesirable results.  In order to demonstrate sustainability, the Groundwater Sustainability Plan regulations require the development of locally-defined quantitative sustainable management criteria, including undesirable results, minimum thresholds, […] The post SGMA IMPLEMENTATION: Developing Sustainable Management Criteria appeared first on MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK | California Water News Central.Sustainable management criteria Archives ~ MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK | California Water News CentralJul 31 2019

Step 5: ​​Incorporating Climate Change

Climate change is already having a significant impact on water resources throughout the globe, resulting in more severe and prolonged droughts, increased flooding, changes in the timing and intensity of precipitation, sea level rise, and a host of other impacts. Scientists predict these impacts will become increasingly intense and less predictable under climate change.

To help GSAs anticipate and plan for these impacts, GSPs must include quantitative climate change analysis into their planning process. Specifically, water budgets must ​include projected hydrology, water demand, and surface water supply account for climate change (CCR §354.18(3)).

Key publications

Step 6: Avoiding undesirable results

SGMA requires GSAs to develop and implement GSPs to avoid the six undesirable results listed below:

• • • Chronic lowering of groundwater levels
    • Groundwater storage reduction
    • Land subsidence
    • Seawater intrusion
    • Degradation of water quality
    • Interconnected surface water depletions and impacts to Groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs)

Step 7: Define projects and actions

Most Groundwater Sustainability Agencies will need to increase supply, manage demand, or do both to achieve sustainable groundwater management under SGMA.

Step 8: Monitoring and data management

Groundwater monitoring is at the heart of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Monitoring networks provide the foundation for developing an understanding of current conditions in the basin and how they are changing through time. Under SGMA, Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) must develop a groundwater monitoring network that “promotes the collection of data of sufficient quality, frequency, and distribution to characterize groundwater and related surface water conditions in the basin…”

Each Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) must include a description of the monitoring network objectives for the basin, including how the network will be developed and implement to ensure evaluate progress toward the basin’s sustainability goal.

To be compliant with SGMA, monitoring networks must be able to demonstrate progress toward achieving the measurable objectives, monitor impacts to beneficial users of groundwater, monitor changes in groundwater conditions relative to measurable objectives and minimum thresholds, and quantify changes in water budget components. Additionally, the networks must collect sufficient data to demonstrate short-term, seasonal, and long-term trends in groundwater and related surface conditions.

Monitoring networks must monitor for all six sustainability criteria unless the GSA has demonstrated that undesirable results for the sustainability criteria are unlikely to occur. GSPs must include the quantitative values for minimum threshold, measurable objectives, and interim milestones for each sustainability criteria, that will be measured at each monitoring site.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: USGS webpage on monitoring groundwater levels

Key publications

Step 9: Interbasin Agreements and Coordination Agreements

Interbasin Agreements, agreements between adjacent basins, are not required under SGMA. Two or more GSAs may enter into an Interbasin Agreement to establish compatible goals and understandings regarding fundamental elements of each GSP.

Interbasin agreements can be used where a groundwater hydraulic connection exists between basins to share technical information and provide a process for resolving conflicts. Interbasin agreements can also be included in a GSP to support findings that implementing a basin’s GSP will not adversely affect an adjacent basin’s ability to implement its GSP.

Click here to read more about Interagency Agreements.

In basins with multiple GSPs, a single Coordination Agreement must be submitted with the GSPs to DWR. The coordination agreement ensures that GSPs are developed and implemented using consistent data, methodologies, and objectives.

The Coordination Agreement must demonstrate how multiple GSPs will jointly achieve the basin’s sustainability goal. Additionally, it must include the responsibilities of each GSA in the basin; the procedures for exchanging information and resolving conflicts; and a description of the data, methodologies, and assumptions used in GSP development.

For more on coordination agreements, click here.

Step 10: Submit the completed plan to the Department of Water Resources

When you have finished your Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), it must then be submitted to the Department of Water Resources.

All groundwater basins that are designated high or medium priority must submit their completed GSPs by January 31, 2022. Groundwater basins designated as critically overdrafted submitted their completed GSPs in January of 2020.

Key resources