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Item Augmenting Indiana's groundwater level monitoring network: optimal siting of additional wells to address spatial and categorical sampling gaps(2014-11-21) Sperl, Benjamin J.; Banerjee, Aniruddha; Lulla, Vijay O.; Bein, Frederick L. (Frederick Louis), 1943-Groundwater monitoring networks are subject to change by budgetary actions and stakeholder initiatives that result in wells being abandoned or added. A strategy for network design is presented that addresses the latter situation. It was developed in response to consensus in the state of Indiana that additional monitoring wells are needed to effectively characterize water availability in aquifer systems throughout the state. The strategic methodology has two primary objectives that guide decision making for new installations: (1) purposive sampling of a diversity of environmental variables having relevance to groundwater recharge, and (2) spatial optimization by means of maximizing geographic distances that separate monitoring wells. Design objectives are integrated in a discrete facility location model known as the p-median problem, and solved to optimality using a mathematical programming package.Item Common Property's Role in Water Resource Management(Second International Conference on Property Rights, Economics and Environment, 1998) Blomquist, WilliamSince I was invited to speak about common-property arrangements in the management of water resources, I shall begin with a description of common-property arrangements. I will then turn to the relationship between the common property and regulatory-agency approaches to water resource management, addressing both its empirical manifestations and some theoretical bases for understanding them. Then I will consider the relationship between common-property and private-property or market arrangements, again analyzing that relationship from empirical and theoretical perspectives. When I use examples or illustrations in this brief presentation, they will have to do with groundwater basins in the United States since those are the empirical cases with which I am familiar. And throughout my remarks, I will be applying the analytical approach of institutional rational-choice analysis, and restating the work of many scholars who have worked in the field of common-property resources.Item Dispute Resolution Processes. Thinking Through SGMA Implementation(Stanford University, 2019) Moran, Tara; Martinez, Janet; Blomquist, WilliamThis report examines 74 multi-entity parties formed as Joint Powers Authorities or Memorandums of Understanding to guide Groundwater Sustainability Agencies through the process of including dispute resolution clauses in their Groundwater Sustainability plans.Item Embracing Watershed Politics(University Press of Colorado, 2008-06-30) Blomquist, William; Schlager, EdellaIn Embracing Watershed Politics, political scientists Edella Schlager and William Blomquist provide timely illustrations and thought-provoking explanations of why political considerations are essential, unavoidable, and in some ways even desirable elements of decision making about water and watersheds. With decades of combined study of water management in the United States, they focus on the many contending interests and communities found in America's watersheds, the fundamental dimensions of decision making, and the impacts of science, complexity, and uncertainty on watershed management.Item Establishment of agencies for local groundwater governance under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.(2018) Milman, Anita; Galindo, Luisa; Blomquist, William; Conrad, EstherWith the passage of its 'Sustainable Groundwater Management Act' (SGMA), California devolved both authority and responsibility for achieving sustainable groundwater management to the local level, with state-level oversight. The passage of SGMA created a new political situation within each groundwater basin covered by the law, as public agencies were tasked with self-organizing to establish local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs). This research examines GSA formation decisions to determine where GSAs formed, whether they were formed by a single agency or a partnership, and whether agencies chose to pursue sustainable groundwater management by way of a single basin-wide organization or by coordinating across multiple organizational structures. The research then tests hypotheses regarding the relative influence of control over the resource, control over decision making, transaction costs, heterogeneity and institutional bricolage on GSA formation decisions. Results indicate mixed preferences for GSA structure, though a majority of public water agencies preferred to independently form a GSA rather than to partner in forming a GSA. Results also suggest GSA formation decisions are the result of overlapping and interacting concerns about control, heterogeneity, and transaction costs. Future research should examine how GSA formation choices serve to influence achievement of groundwater sustainability at the basin scale.Item Getting Out of the Commons Trap: Variables, Process, and Results in Four Groundwater Basins(Social Science Perspectives Journal, 1987) Blomquist, William"Jointly-accessible resources used by multiple individuals are often endangered. Indeed, we call the supposedly inevitable destruction of such resources 'the tragedy of the commons'. Commons problems have been classified with other 'social traps' such as the collective action problem and the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Reasoning by analogy and metaphor from these other 'traps' has yielded a general prognosis of doom for the commons, escapable only via privatization of the resource or centralized public management. In fact, alternative organizations of resource use exist, and have led to resource preservation and even to resource enhancement. The question is how, and under what conditions, users of a common resource might collectively coordinate their behavior to avoid impending doom and enhance resource use without resort to either of the forms prescribed in the prevailing literature. Drawing upon the methods of institutional analysis and the experience of actual cases of commons management, this paper presents descriptive and quantitative evidence on: (a) the relevant characteristics of the settings in which resource users operate, (b) the steps taken in a process of resolution of a commons dilemma, and (c) the results obtained thus far by the users of groundwater basins in arid and heavily populated portions of southern California. The likelihood of successful resolution is compared across different settings, and the efficiency and equity of different public/private organizational form mixes are compared, as well."Item The hidden costs of desert development(SpringerLink, 2020-08) Luo, Lihui; Zhuang, Yanli; Zhao, Wenzhi; Duan, Quntao; Wang, Lixin; Earth Sciences, School of ScienceEconomic benefits and ecological restoration are the leading drivers of desert development through man-made oasis expansion. However, the sustainability of oasis expansion in combating desertification while promoting economic growth remains unclear, though such knowledge is critical for future desert development across the globe. To address this knowledge gap, a comprehensive assessment integrating meteorological, groundwater and remote-sensing data as well as groundwater simulation datasets was conducted to evaluate the spatial-temporal changes in the desert-oasis ecotone of northwest China over the past six decades. Desert development causes a rapid decline in the surrounding groundwater table, increases pollution in soil and groundwater and is associated with an increased frequency of strong sandstorms. Desert development seems to have improved the environment and promoted the economy, but there is a huge cost for the overexploitation of water resources and the transfer of pollution from surface to underground, which could cause deserts to degrade further.Item The Local Groundwater Economy in Los Angeles County, California(Indiana University, 1994) Blomquist, William"The governance and management of water use in the United States generally, and in southern California in particular, are not organized as an ideal legal-rational centralized administration or as a perfectly competitive private market. This fact poses challenges to analysis that the local public economies (LPE) framework developed at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis helps to resolve. "The LPE framework enlarges the possibilities for descriptive and prescriptive analysis of interorganizational relations. It is based on the idea that an understanding of current arrangements is an important prerequisite to the issuance of prescriptions for reform. That view, which has informed work on metropolitan area governmental organization (e.g., ACIR, 1987), suggests that analysts 'begin to search for the nature of the order which exists in the complex of relationships among governmental units and abandon the assumption that all of these relationships are unique or random.' By searching for 'the nature of the order which exists' and 'an analysis of how the system works,' (Ostrom and Ostrom, 1965: 138) one can arrive at descriptions of current arrangements. Discussion of shortcomings and recommendations for improvements can follow, while the ultimate evaluations of the performance of public officials and governmental structures are left to citizens."Item Property Rights, Political Power, and the Management of Ground and Surface Water(Western Political Science Association, 1997) Blomquist, William; Schlager, EdellaAmong the more popular contemporary recommendations for improved watershed use and protection is conjunctive use of surface and underground water resources. Conjunctive use involves the coordination of surface water supplies and storage with groundwater supplies and storage, for purposes of sustainable watershed use and enhanced watershed protection. Among the several potential benefits that have been promoted by advocates of greater conjunctive use are: improved security of usable water supplies, lessened exposure to extreme events such as droughts and floods, reduced reliance on costly and environmentally disruptive surface water impoundments and distribution systems, and enhanced protection of aquatic life and habitat.Item Putting Adaptive Management into Practice: Incorporating Quantitative Metrics into Sustainable Groundwater Management(Stanford University, 2019) Conrad, Esther; Moran, Tara; Crankshaw, Ilana; Blomquist, William; Martinez, Janet; Szeptycki, LeonThis report uses four cases to examine how agencies have used adaptive mangement and quantitative metrics to set minimum thresholds, measurable objectives and interim milestones to measure groundwater in California. The report offers recommendations for Groundwater Sustainability Agencies as they write their sustainability plans.