[1] Groundwater can be created by using dewatered aquifer space to store water during the years when there is abundant rainfall.
[2] The groundwater will reduce the risk of relying on surface water and will maximize expected income.
[2] Groundwater banking has been implemented into semi-arid and arid southwestern United States because this is where there is the most need for extra water.
[2] The amount of water depends also on a couple of other factors including groundwater pumping by other users, leakage, and natural recharge.
[2] This could increase the rate of discharge or decrease the amount of induced recharge, and both of these cause water to leave the basin.
[1] In-lieu recharge is the renewable surface water used to irrigate the farmland in place of using regular groundwater.
[4] This settling of land, known as subsidence, can fracture roads and building foundations and can burst water, sewer, and gas lines.
Groundwater banking and aquifer storage systems are being explored to control flooding during times of high precipitation.
[8] There are five factors that determine the feasibility of groundwater recharge on agricultural land: deep percolation, root zone residence time, topography, chemical limitations, and soil surface conditions.
[8] The five factors were modeled using United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) digital soil survey data.
[8] For the deep percolation factor a high rate of water transmission through the soil profile and into the aquifer below is the key to successful groundwater banking.
[8] Level topography works the best because it holds water better on the landscape which allows infiltration across large areas.
[8] Infiltrations limits can be caused by quality and depth of water that could lead to the destruction of aggregates, the formation of physical crusts, and compaction.
[8] To determine the feasibility of groundwater banking each of the five factors were assigned a weight to how significant it was, and then a SAGBI score was calculated.
[8] The weights were 27.5% deep percolation, 27.5% root zone residence time, 20% topography, 20% chemical limitations, and 5% surface conditions.
[8] Adoption of this practice would require support to protect growers from risk of crop failure.
[2] If the right to water is greater than liabilities then the bank is insolvent, and this will become a problem when a drought occurs.
[2] The banking systems need regulatory control over the basin to implement the withdrawal rates and to ensure that other participants will not extract too much stored water.
[2] The best scenario would be that the bank owner or participants would be the main users to ensure that abstractions are controlled.
[2] There can be problems when multiple entities have jurisdiction over a project, and this can cause regulatory and organizational challenges.
[2] One of the main requirements is an action needs to be in place so that the stored water is not being abstracted by other users who are not involved in the system.
[2] The different projects can become economically efficient by maximizing the benefits of the limited resource (water).
[9] The way to eliminate some of the negative externality is there can be a tax placed on the resource to increase the marginal cost.
[9] Water has high transaction costs and create market barriers which devalues the use to society restricting the reallocation of resources.