Here is what 30 years of conservation without new storage has given us: Severe water shortages after one very dry year on the back of two below-normal years; productive orchards bulldozed in the Central Valley; hundreds of thousands of acres of food-producing land left idle; thousands jobless; a projected $1.7 billion economic loss in the Central Valley alone.
Groundwater tables are falling because surface water supplies have been so strictly reduced. As farmers have switched to low-flow irrigation techniques, less water has been returned to the ground through percolation. Groundwater recharge will not happen in our concreted cities; it must happen in our open landscapes that are properly managed. Farms can grow crops and help replenish underground aquifers if they’re allowed to be managed according to their unique situations – and if adequate surface water supplies return, to reduce groundwater demand.
http://www.modbee.com/2014/06/17/3393811/californias-water-woes-cant-be.html