Project Specifics

Groundwater supply in the Santa Clarita Valley (SCV) Water service area is a significant share of the total supply, with the aquifer system representing a valuable storage reservoir. Groundwater is also integral to the local ecology because it interacts with surface-water flows in the Santa Clara River and supports phreatophytes in the basin. SCV Water, as part of the SCV Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), prepared a groundwater-sustainability plan for the Santa Clara River Valley East Subbasin. This work included developing a groundwater-flow numerical model, assessing groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and developing sustainability criteria and monitoring networks. In addition, as part of their water-resilience initiative, SCV Water is assessing future operating plans for use of the groundwater resource, including assessing additional water-supply wells and groundwater recharge.

Geosyntec Scope of Services

Geosyntec provided groundwater management and hydrogeology support during development of the groundwater-sustainability plan (as part of the GSA team and directly to SCV Water) and at the start of their water-resilience initiative.

Our team helped SCV Water evaluate the results of the groundwater model, assess the impacts for future groundwater management, and develop recommendations for tools and evaluations to support the water-resilience initiative, as follows:

• Developed a 3D model to support water-resources planning, communicate subsurface conditions to interested parties, and allow data and analyses from multiple sources (including the groundwater flow model) to be viewed
• Developed groundwater-pumping scenarios to assess future conditions
• Quantitatively evaluated model outputs (including analysis of zone budget) to support water-resource planning
• Quantitatively evaluated interactions between surface water and groundwater under current and future conditions
• Developed graphics and presentations to communicate about water-resource planning work and groundwater evaluations, including sharing modeling results
• Helped identify and map the groundwater-dependent ecosystems for inclusion in the groundwater-sustainability plan
• Developed recommendations for data-management tools, modeling evaluations, hydrogeological testing, and future surface-water modeling needs (as well as on how to implement these items)

Notable Accomplishments

Our groundwater management, hydrogeology, and information management expertise gave the client tools and advice to help them better manage groundwater resources and storage reserves in the basin, both now and in the future, while maintaining a healthy riparian ecosystem.

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