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Surface and groundwater are hydrologically connected, but water management regimes often treat them as separate resources. California, for instance, is the western jurisdiction that draws most heavily upon groundwater (40% of supply), yet stands alone with Texas as the only one without a groundwater management code. Instead, groundwater is treated as an incident of land ownership and is governed only by ad hoc court decisions, whereas surface water is treated as a public asset, subject to administration by state agencies.
This dichotomous treatment poses major challenges as we devise innovative water management solutions. Yet, integrating the management of groundwater and surface water is often a necessary feature of the solutions strategies that NHI forges. For example, unregulated groundwater extractions can deplete the base flows that are the lifeline for threatened riverine ecosystems and river-based livelihoods. This is the case in California, where NHI is investigating legal interventions to extend the administration of the water rights system to encompass tributary groundwater. At the U.S./Mexico border, groundwater extractions have severely depleted the San Pedro River. Reducing those extractions is a fundamental part of NHI’s solution strategy in that region.
Improved groundwater management can reduce conflict between individuals and communities. Integration of surface and groundwater management is also indispensable to NHI’s concept of reoperating reservoirs to generate the source water for groundwater banking, thereby increasing water availability for environmental flows as well as water supplies. NHI has also worked in international settings to enhance groundwater management for this purpose. In India’s Gujarat State, we have designed groundwater management institutions that prevent the farmers who can drill the deepest wells from monopolizing the resource (and therefore local political power). In the Middle East, we have evaluated institutional arrangements to increase equity and sustainability in the use of the mountain aquifer on the West Bank, which is shared by Palestinian and Israeli communities.
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