“In 2014 California introduced the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) into state law to help manage the conflict between ground and surface water. But updating legal structures to accommodate evolving scientific knowledge involves far more than simply rewriting statutes, according to researchers in the US.
“Understanding the interconnections between groundwater and surface water doesn’t make those conflicts go away,” says Dave Owen of University of California, Hastings. “But at least acknowledging those interconnections in law puts legal decision-makers in a position to start managing conflicts, rather than just letting them play out without any legal oversight.” … ”
Read more from Physics World here: Changing the ground (water) rules