Groundwater Sustainability Planning in California: Recommendations for Strengthening the Kern Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper addresses Groundwater Sustainability Planning in California and its limitations. It emphasizes the importance of groundwater supply for the agricultural development of the region and highlights necessary improvements for better water management strategies.

However it needs some refinements before its pubblication. Here is a list of suggestion.

1. The abstract should be rewrite, integrating the information of the bulleted list into a narrative format.

2. Sections 1.1 and 1.2 can be merged and improved for readers who are not familiar with this management plan in California.

3. Please, revised the manuscript from typographical or grammatical errors. For example, Line 7 (add a space before acronym), Line 42 (has had no no), Line 163 (add a space before the reference) ect.

4. Consistency in verb tenses should be ensured throughout the document.

5. Some sentences are complex and could benefit from simplification for better readability (for example, lines 132-136).

6. What is this measure of unit AFY in line 87? 

7. I suggest inserting “Minimum Threshold Groundwater Elevation Contour” symbol in the map of figure 1 or specify it in the caption. Same considerations for legends in figures 3.1 and 3.2.

8. I believe that a lot of (Gosselin, Paul, 2022) are present in the paper, also in consecutive paragraphs (For example, 106-132, 195-238, 279-290). Also figures and tables are of this report. I noticed the significance of this manuscript as reference for this report but the authors can consider to rephrase these paragraph in order to reduce the number of citation in consecutive sentences.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

 

COMMENT: The paper addresses Groundwater Sustainability Planning in California and its limitations. It emphasizes the importance of groundwater supply for the agricultural development of the region and highlights necessary improvements for better water management strategies.However it needs some refinements before its publication. Here is a list of suggestion.

RESPONSE: Thank you for taking the time to review our paper.

 

COMMENT 1. The abstract should be rewrite, integrating the information of the bulleted list into a narrative format.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this suggestion. We have re-written the bulleted list into a narrative form in the abstract. The abstract now reads:

Abstract：Kern County is one of the most valuable agricultural counties in the nation. This, however, is being put in jeopardy with the recently implemented Sustainable Groundwater Man-agement Act (SGMA) in response to the ongoing California drought and extensive groundwater pumping for irrigation. The Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) are responsible for de-veloping Groundwater Sustainability Plans to address the new SGMA policies. The objective of this paper is to examine the Kern Groundwater Sustainability Plan (KGSP), determine its strengths and weaknesses, and provide recommendations for the updated plan released in 2025. The plan does well in defining criteria that must be met, but fails to address how these goals will be imple-mented. Based on our policy analysis, our recommendations include standardizing groundwater management terms across sub-basins, defining clear measurements of undesirable results, utilizing financial (dis)incentives to encourage groundwater users to manage water sustainability, and in-creasing interconnections between local and state organizations. Importantly, improving this pol-icy process for SGMA may be an example for critically over drafted groundwater basins globally on how to more sustainability manage their groundwater.

 

COMMENT: 2. Sections 1.1 and 1.2 can be merged and improved for readers who are not familiar with this management plan in California.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this suggestion. We have merged section 1.1 and 1.2 and both are now under the sub-section titled “SGMA requirements”. 

 

COMMENT: 3. Please, revise the manuscript from typographical or grammatical errors. For example, Line 7 (add a space before acronym), Line 42 (has had no no), Line 163 (add a space before the reference) ect.

RESPONSE: Both authors have re-read the manuscript for typographical and grammatical errors. We have also taken the paper to our University’s writing center to have a third set of eyes on making revisions for typographical or grammatical errors. 

 

COMMENT: 4. Consistency in verb tenses should be ensured throughout the document.

RESPONSE: Both authors have re-read the manuscript to ensure consistent verb tenses throughout. We have also taken the paper to our University’s writing center to have a third set of eyes on making revisions for typographical or grammatical errors.

 

COMMENT: 5. Some sentences are complex and could benefit from simplification for better readability (for example, lines 132-136).

RESPONSE: Thank you. We have aimed to simplify the text throughout. For example, lines 132-136 now reads “In order to effectively identify potential minimum threshold exceedances before water levels fall below SGMA requirements, the Sustainable Management Criteria (SMC) has been set to be more thorough than SGMA’s required minimum thresholds.”

 

COMMENT: 6. What is this measure of unit AFY in line 87? 

RESPONSE: We have revised this acronym to be “acre-feet per year”, which is what AFY stands for. 

 

COMMENT: 7. I suggest inserting “Minimum Threshold Groundwater Elevation Contour” symbol in the map of figure 1 or specify it in the caption. Same considerations for legends in figures 3.1 and 3.2.

RESPONSE: We have integrated this symbol into the caption for Figure 1. However, figures 3.1 and 3.2 do not contain the minimum threshold groundwater elevation contour, so we have not added that symbol to the map or caption. Instead, the goal of figure 3.1 is to show the different land uses in Kern County and the purpose of figure 3.2 is to show the water sources for agriculture in the Kern County subbasin.

 

COMMENT: 8. I believe that a lot of (Gosselin, Paul, 2022) are present in the paper, also in consecutive paragraphs (For example, 106-132, 195-238, 279-290). Also figures and tables are of this report. I noticed the significance of this manuscript as reference for this report but the authors can consider to rephrase these paragraph in order to reduce the number of citation in consecutive sentences.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this feedback. We have drawn from the work of Paul Gosselin in this paper, but have now aimed to include a greater diversity of references and sources. Therefore, we draw from a greater variety of resources in our revised manuscript. 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting paper and covers an important topic. However, to benefit readers, additional information will be useful. Authors must include how threshold has been decided. If possible, an illustrative example can be added.

 

Certain information about the lithologs, type of aquifers, aquifer parameters will be helpful.

 

Presence of a river is shown in Fig. 1. Information related to flow in the river along with stage will help to assess  the possible role of stream aquifer interaction.

How are ground water contours  obtained. Certain information about this should be included.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

 

COMMENT: This is an interesting paper and covers an important topic. However, to benefit readers, additional information will be useful. Authors must include how threshold has been decided. If possible, an illustrative example can be added.

RESPONSE: We are glad that you find the paper interesting and about an important topic. We have added more information about how minimum thresholds were decided into Section 2.1. The new text reads: “Minimum thresholds are a SGMA requirement consisting of numerical values calculated by a monitoring network at each sustainability indicator, where evaluations determine the level at which groundwater conditions will lead to an undesirable result. [22] (p. ES-4) These thresholds ensure the consideration of the diverse distribution of beneficial users as it avoids significant and unitigable impacts to them [8] (p. 3).”

 

COMMENT: Certain information about the lithologs, type of aquifers, aquifer parameters will be helpful.

RESPONSE: We have added some sentences in the introduction section about the types of aquifers and a generalization of how the parameters of the aquifers look like: “The aquifers in Kern County have different zones of confined, semi confined, and unconfined groundwater states. These various conditions lead to some areas, such as the western side of the subbasin, having very limited and little usable groundwater, while other areas like the east have the alluvium and Kern River Formation making good water quality”

 

COMMENT: Presence of a river is shown in Fig. 1. Information related to flow in the river along with stage will help to assess  the possible role of stream aquifer interaction.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this feedback. While hydrologically surface and groundwater are very interconnected, the policies regarding each are very different, and not interconnected. Therefore, we have limited our discussion to groundwater resources.  

 

COMMENT: How are ground water contours  obtained. Certain information about this should be included.

RESPONSE: We have added information about how the groundwater contours are obtained, as well as where to get access to more information about it in the introduction section: “The GSP monitoring network is being supplemented with local data on groundwater elevation to establish groundwater elevation contour maps for the Principal Aquifers in the Subbasin, made public in the kerngwa website. This will include wells that are being recorded by the Kern Fan Monitoring Committee and other water data available” 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors establish that the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in response to the current drought in California and the extensive pumping of groundwater for irrigation, puts the normal development of agricultural activities at risk. It is essential to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans to address the new efficient management policies. Thus, they establish the objective of this document to examine the Groundwater Sustainability Plan, determine its strengths and weaknesses, and provide recommendations for the updated plan that will be published in 2025. The authors establish that the plan does not address how the objectives will be implemented. established in the plan, so it is preponderant to improve policy processes for the rational use of groundwater that are overexploited worldwide. 

Likewise, we can establish some recommendations:

In point 2.1. INCONSISTENCIES ACROSS SUB-BASINS, we find that the first four paragraphs are based on a single reference (Gosselin, Paul, 2022), which is inappropriate. In general, the entire document is referred to the work of this author.

 The announced contributions are not presented, this warrants more in-depth work.

Regarding Figure 1, it requires higher resolution, the texts are illegible, a legend is included outside the figure (Minimum Threshold Groundwater Elevation Contour), this must be corrected. Also, the coordinates on the edges are illegible.

The citation style does not correspond to the format of the journal.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

 

COMMENT: The authors establish that the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in response to the current drought in California and the extensive pumping of groundwater for irrigation, puts the normal development of agricultural activities at risk. It is essential to develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans to address the new efficient management policies. Thus, they establish the objective of this document to examine the Groundwater Sustainability Plan, determine its strengths and weaknesses, and provide recommendations for the updated plan that will be published in 2025. The authors establish that the plan does not address how the objectives will be implemented. established in the plan, so it is preponderant to improve policy processes for the rational use of groundwater that are overexploited worldwide. Likewise, we can establish some recommendations:

RESPONSE: Thank you for your time reviewing our paper. 

 

COMMENT: In point 2.1. INCONSISTENCIES ACROSS SUB-BASINS, we find that the first four paragraphs are based on a single reference (Gosselin, Paul, 2022), which is inappropriate. In general, the entire document is referred to the work of this author.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this feedback. While the topic is very new and there is little available research and resources we have added more references and sources

 

COMMENT: The announced contributions are not presented, this warrants more in-depth work.

RESPONSE: We have gone through the manuscript and made sure that all in-text citations match with the References in the references list. 

 

COMMENT: Regarding Figure 1, it requires higher resolution, the texts are illegible, a legend is included outside the figure (Minimum Threshold Groundwater Elevation Contour), this must be corrected. Also, the coordinates on the edges are illegible.

RESPONSE: We have enlarged Figure 1 as much as possible given the journal article formatting. We believe that the text should be legible now, although still small to fit in all the details. Indeed, we have enlarged all the figures to enhance legibility.

 

COMMENT: The citation style does not correspond to the format of the journal.

RESPONSE: We have reformatted the citations following the guidelines available here: : https://www.mdpi.com/journal/water/instructions

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I believe that the recommendations made in the initial review have been adequately addressed.