California was the last state in the West to regulate groundwater when lawmakers passed the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Widely considered the most important water law in 100 years, SGMA for the first time empowered local agencies to adopt groundwater management plans tailored to the resources and needs of their communities.

The law and its progress to date will be featured at June’s international groundwater conference, Toward Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture: 2nd International Conference Linking Science and Policy

Gordon Burns, Undersecretary for Environmental Protection at the California Environmental Protection Agency, will provide an overview of SGMA on the conference’s opening day, June 28.

Throughout the day other experts weighing in on SGMA include:

• Kamyar Guivetchi, Chief of DWR’s Division of Statewide Integrated Management
• Rebecca Nelson, renowned researcher who leads the Comparative Groundwater Law and Policy Program at Stanford University. She was among the first to write about the many innovative practices among California groundwater management plans
• Michelle Sneed, hydrologist with U.S. Geological Survey who was the lead report author of the 2013 Land Subsidence along the Delta-Mendota Canal in the Northern Part of the San Joaquin Valley, California, 2003-10
• Erik Ekdahl, the program manager for the State Water Resources Control Board Groundwater Management Unit, in the Office of Research, Planning and Performance. 

This international conference is being held June 28-30 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame.

Organized by the Water Education Foundation and the UC Davis Robert M. Hagan Endowed Chair, the conference is expected to draw policy and scientific experts from across California and the rest of the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Spain.

Click here to find out more and to register securely online.