Irrigation district sustainability

Presented at Irrigation district sustainability - strategies to meet the challenges: USCID irrigation district specialty conference held on June 3-6, 2009 in Reno, Nevada.This paper provides an overview of the Poso Creek Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP or Plan) and the System Optimization Review (SOR) being conducted for the Plan's Region. SORs are a component within the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Water for America program. The Region contains six agricultural water districts with about 350,000 of irrigated cropland out of a gross area over 500,000 acres. The managed water supplies for the districts include: • Local: Kern River, Poso Creek, and the common groundwater basin • State: State Water Project via the California Aqueduct • Federal: Central Valley Project via the California Aqueduct and the Friant-Kern Canal. The recent regulatory and hydrologic droughts in California are causing a decrease in water reliability of the managed supplies available to the Region. The result is a projected average annual loss of supply to the Region, which has brought this group of districts together to leverage their individual water supply and infrastructure assets as a region. Since the Region is located at the "crossroads" of the California Aqueduct, Friant-Kern Canal, and the Kern River, it is an ideal location for regional conjunctive management. The SOR is to (1) prioritize the implementation of structural water management measures for the Region, and (2) identify and resolve institutional constraints to exchanges between districts and thereby enhance the use of available district groundwater banking capacity and facilities. Conducting the SOR enhances the districts' shared approach to Plan implementation and sound stewardship of the Region's surface water and groundwater resources