What SGMA is

SGMA is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, a 2014 California law. It requires local agencies in medium- and high-priority groundwater basins to manage groundwater toward sustainability. It is not a single statewide irrigation permit, and it is not one form every farm files.

How the law is built

Local agencies form groundwater sustainability agencies, usually called GSAs. Those agencies write groundwater sustainability plans. The California Department of Water Resources (opens in a new tab) oversees much of that process. The the State Water Resources Control Board (opens in a new tab) can become involved when a basin’s groundwater management fails the state’s review. The map of basins, agencies, and plans is the SGMA Portal (opens in a new tab). A plain overview is DWR’s SGMA groundwater management page (opens in a new tab).

A farm outside a medium- or high-priority basin is not in the same program as a farm inside one. Two farms in the same county can sit in different basins, or in the same basin under GSAs whose plans, meters, fees, and allocations are not the same. The neighboring county’s rule is not evidence of yours. Look the basin up.

What it asks of a farm, and what it does not

There is no universal answer on a software page. One basin may expect well meters and an extraction report. Another may be earlier in that work, or the paperwork that matters this year may be a district’s, not the GSA’s. A farm on district surface water can still have a groundwater question if it also pumps. SGMA is a groundwater law. A district can have its own rules for the water it delivers. Keep those records separate even when both water the same field.

RowCodes can help you document metered pumping. It does not make a farm SGMA compliant, and it does not file a report with the state. Your GSA or district decides whether the format, the method, and the timing are acceptable. That limit is written for growers on SGMA water monitoring. What to keep in the file is in agricultural water records.

Water source is part of the record

Groundwater, a district turnout, a river claim, and a contract supply are not the same bucket. A monthly extraction file made from metered well data is a record of those wells. Adding a ditch delivery into that file and calling the sum groundwater extraction is how a true number becomes the wrong number. Log the delivery as a delivery. Total the metered well as a well.

Metered water is totaled as metered. A run with no meter but an entered flow rate is counted and labeled estimated, and it is never shown as metered. Water with neither is “not measured,” left out of the totals, and never shown as zero. A soil-moisture reading, a satellite crop-health pass, and reference evapotranspiration from CIMIS (opens in a new tab) can help an irrigator think about a set. They are not a well meter and they are not a SGMA filing.

Where to read the rule that applies

Open the SGMA Portal (opens in a new tab) and find the basin, then read that GSA’s plan and notices. DWR’s SGMA groundwater management page (opens in a new tab) explains the state program. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (opens in a new tab) publishes crop and irrigation guidance that is agronomic, not a filing instruction. RowCodes organizes the water you already measure and can produce a monthly extraction file with metered and estimated water in a separate “Estimated (acre-ft)” column. Whether anyone will accept the file is their rule.

California farm context, including why the San Joaquin Valley is not one water system, is on California agricultural irrigation. The product’s record-keeping is irrigation water management.

The record a farm can actually keep

Where a meter is on the well, RowCodes logs that pumped water as metered. You enter an allocation for each field and water year. Alerts fire at 75, 90, and 100 percent of that number. There is no per-well allocation in the product, and there is no custom percent. An alert does not shut a valve. Stopping water is still a command a person sends, or a schedule already written.

A run with no meter but an entered flow rate is counted and labeled estimated, and it is never shown as metered. Water with neither is “not measured,” left out of the totals, and never shown as zero. A monthly extraction file includes metered and estimated water, with estimated water in a separate “Estimated (acre-ft)” column. District deliveries stay in their own column. Mixing them into the well total and calling the sum groundwater is how a careful file becomes the wrong file.

That file is something you can hand to the person who files. It is not the filing, and it is not a finding that the farm met the plan. The GSA’s notice, the basin’s plan, and the meter method they accept are still the rule. Read those on the portal before you treat a spreadsheet as done.

Questions

Does SGMA cover the water my district delivers?

SGMA is a groundwater law. A district can have its own rules for surface deliveries. Keep the two records separate even when both water the same field.

Does a login mean the farm is compliant?

Compliance depends on the basin, the GSA, the water source, and the rules that apply to that farm. Metered records can help you document use. They are not a certificate, and RowCodes does not file them for you.

RowCodes runs the set from the phone

RowCodes totals metered pumping and can make a monthly extraction file from that data. It does not decide what a groundwater agency requires. Log in to read records on a farm you already run. Installers sign in on their own login.