Navigating local governance choices for the future sustainability of California's groundwater

Unsustainable use of groundwater in California has increased considerably during the last few decades affecting particularly those basins located in the central valley and coastal areas. In 2014, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was adopted by the State of California with the objective of ensuring the future sustainability of high- and middle-priority basins. This policy fomented the creation of Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA), which are self-defined institutions with different arrangements of public and private entities. In this research we study factors that influenced the formation of single versus multi-agency GSA and helped stablishing their jurisdictional boundaries (single-GSA versus multi-GSA basins). We used spatial analysis to describe structural features of each group of GSA, and multivariate analysis to test hypotheses about the influence of resource competition, control over decision making, transaction cost, heterogeneity, and path-dependent institution development (bricolage) on GSAs' formation. We complemented these results with punctual GSA observations. At the end, we concluded that local entities have a strong preferences for acting independently, thus autonomy is likely to play an important role in the creation of these agencies. From the multivariate analysis it was not possible to conclude that resource competition or control over decision making are leading factors in the formation of multi-GSA basins. Although transaction costs and bricolage were not confirmed either, there are indicatives that these two played an important role in certain cases. Findings for heterogeneity were inconclusive and further research is needed. The structure of the GSAs will play a fundamental role in achieving SGMA's goals. This study contributes to our knowledge of how political, social, and economic factors will influence the future sustainability of groundwater resources, and to furthering our understanding of formation of local institutions.