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For most of the public, groundwater is out of sight and out of mind. Our inability to readily see groundwater and limited measurements of this resource contribute to its lack of visibility in discussions of water policy, governance, and management—at least when compared to surface water. This visibility challenge is far from new. In 1861, an Ohio court famously concluded that groundwater was so “secret, occult, and concealed” that any attempt to regulate it “would be involved in hopeless uncertainty, and would be, therefore, practically impossible” (Frazier v. Brown 1861). While the science and water law have advanced, groundwater remains largely undervalued and narrowly perceived (Campana 2014), not only by the general public but also by many professionals in the water, energy, environmental, and agricultural sectors.

Book Review

The book Transboundary Groundwater Resources: Sustainable Management and Conflict Resolution (Fried and Ganoulis 2016) builds on an experimental training program. The program consisted of two workshops held in 2006 and 2010 in collaboration with the International Hydrological Programme of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In his introductory chapter, lead editor Fried describes the volume as a “manual” designed as a “first attempt to conceive and produce a textbook dealing with transboundary groundwater governance and sustainable management and involving water diplomacy for negotiations and conflict resolution.”

Issues around water as a resource consistently top the list of environmental concerns in the United States, especially when they relate to water supply and quality. However, the large-scale nature of water issues means it is often challenging for individuals to discover, learn, and act to positively impact local water resources as well as the greater environment.

This Special Issue of Water will focus on the relationship of water governance practices and stakeholder engagement approaches to the development, evaluation, and adoption of solutions to water management challenges. It is well recognized that the human dimensions of considering alternative water management scenarios and policy options are as least as important as their engineering, hydrological, and financial aspects. Identifying good governance practices and successful stakeholder engagement approaches can assist decision makers and water managers as they grapple with meeting the multiple environmental, economic, and societal objectives associated with sustainable water management. Papers are solicited that connect governance and/or stakeholder engagement approaches to the identification, characterization, and/or adoption of sustainable water management strategies, including conservation focused, flood risk reduction and technological solutions. The Guest Editors will consider papers addressing water governance and stakeholder engagement at all geographic scales, including transboundary. Papers addressing surface water, groundwater, and/or integrated water resources management are of interest, as are papers that examine indicators for governance and stakeholder engagement practices.

Groundwater is an increasingly important source of freshwater, especially where surface water resources are fully or over-allocated or becoming less reliable due to climate change. Groundwater reliance has created new challenges for sustainable management. This article examines how regional groundwater users coordinate and collaborate to manage shared groundwater resources, including attention to what drives collaboration. To identify and illustrate these facets, this article examines three geographically diverse cases of groundwater governance and management from the United States Sun Belt: Orange County Water District in southern California; Prescott Active Management Area in north-central Arizona; and the Central Florida Water Initiative in central Florida. These regions have different surface water laws, groundwater allocation and management laws and regulations, demographics, economics, topographies, and climate. These cases were selected because the Sun Belt faces similar pressures on groundwater due to historical and projected population growth and limited availability of usable surface water supplies. Collectively, they demonstrate groundwater governance trends in the United States, and illustrate distinctive features of regional groundwater management strategies. Our research shows how geophysical realities and state-level legislation have enabled and/or stimulated regions to develop groundwater management plans and strategies to address the specific issues associated with their groundwater resources. We find that litigation involvement and avoidance, along with the need to finance projects, are additional drivers of regional collaboration to manage groundwater. This case study underscores the importance of regionally coordinated and sustained efforts to address serious groundwater utilization challenges faced by the regions studied and around the world.

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We in Arizona have become all too familiar with projections of a future gap between water demand and supply, due In part to our growing economy and potential reduction of supplies.

The Importance of Arizona's ability to ensure a reliable water supply cannot be overstated. It affects the entire trajectory of our future economic development prospects and our overall quality of life.

But we're not alone. Half-way around the world, Israel is confronting similar challenges head on, proving that desert economies cannot only survive, but thrive.

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This Special Issue of Water will focus on the relationship of water governance practices and stakeholder engagement approaches to the development, evaluation, and adoption of solutions to water management challenges. It is well recognized that the human dimensions of considering alternative water management scenarios and policy options are as least as important as their engineering, hydrological, and financial aspects. Identifying good governance practices and successful stakeholder engagement approaches can assist decision makers and water managers as they grapple with meeting the multiple environmental, economic, and societal objectives associated with sustainable water management. Papers are solicited that connect governance and/or stakeholder engagement approaches to the identification, characterization, and/or adoption of sustainable water management strategies, including conservation focused, flood risk reduction and technological solutions. The Guest Editors will consider papers addressing water governance and stakeholder engagement at all geographic scales, including transboundary. Papers addressing surface water, groundwater, and/or integrated water resources management are of interest, as are papers that examine indicators for governance and stakeholder engagement practices.

This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Governance, Stakeholder Engagement, and Sustainable Water Resources Management

Abstract: Groundwater is a critical component of the water supply for agriculture, urban areas, industry, and ecosystems, but managing it is a challenge because groundwater is difficult to map, quantify, and evaluate. Until recently, study and assessment of governance of this water resource has been largely neglected. A survey was developed to query state agency officials about the extent and scope of groundwater use, groundwater laws and regulations, and groundwater tools and strategies. Survey responses revealed key findings: states' legal frameworks for groundwater differ widely in recognizing the hydrologic connection between surface water and groundwater, the needs of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and the protection of groundwater quality; states reported a range in capacity to enforce groundwater responsibilities; and states have also experienced substantial changes in groundwater governance in the past few decades. Overall, groundwater governance across the United States is fragmented. States nevertheless identified three common priorities for groundwater governance: water quality and contamination, conflicts between users, and declining groundwater levels. This survey represents an initial step in a broader, continuing effort to characterize groundwater governance practices in the United States.

Sharon B. Megdal, Director of the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), recently co-authored an article on Tucson Water (TW) with Alan Forrest, former director of TW and current manager for CH2M. The article, "How a Drought-Resilient Water Delivery System Rose Out of the Desert: The Case of Tucson Water", was published in the September 2015 issue of the Journal American Water Works Association (AWWA) and explores the history of Tucson Water over the past two-plus decades. The article describes the challenges the utility faced over the years, the introduction of CAP water in Tucson, and the management strategies that improved TW's water supply resiliency including the utility's Storage and Recovery system. 

Episodic streamflow events in the Upper Santa Cruz River recharge a shallow alluvial aquifer that is an essential water resource for the surrounding communities. The complex natural variability of the rainfall-driven streamflow events introduces a water resources management challenge for the region. In this study, we assessed the impact of projected climate change on regional water resources management. We analyzed climate change projections of precipitation for the Upper Santa Cruz River from eight dynamically downscaled Global Circulation Models (GCMs). Our analysis indicates an increase (decrease) in the frequency of occurrence of dry (wet) summers. The winter rainfall projections indicate an increased frequency of both dry and wet winter seasons, which implies lower chance for medium-precipitation winters. The climate analysis results were also compared with resampled coarse GCMs and bias adjusted and statistically downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 projections readily available for the contiguous U.S. The impact of the projected climatic change was assessed through a water resources management case study. The hydrologic framework utilized includes a rainfall generator of likely scenarios and a series of hydrologic models that estimate the groundwater recharge and the change in groundwater storage. We conclude that climatic change projections increase the uncertainty and further exacerbate the already complicated water resources management task. The ability to attain an annual water supply goal, the accrued annual water deficit and the potential for replenishment of the aquifer depend considerably on the selected management regime.