The Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Act revised the Water Code to direct the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to develop the initial groundwater basin priority by January 31, 2015.  The SGMA included new criteria to be considered in the reprioritization process.  DWR has concluded that the basin prioritization finalized in June 2014 under the California Statewide Groundwater Elevation Monitoring (CASGEM) program will be the initial prioritization when the SGMA goes into effect on January 1, 2015.  Additional information can be accessed here.  The basin prioritization results can be accessed here.  The SGM Act applies to the 127 High and Medium priority groundwater basins, which account for approximately 96 percent of groundwater use in California.  

DWR has determined that data is not readily available to allow reprioritization based on adverse impacts from local habitat and local streamflows prior to January 31, 2015.  DWR will immediately begin to compile the habitat and streamflow data and develop a revised process to consider new information.  The groundwater basin prioritization could change at a later date for some basins due to the consideration of impacts from local habitat and local streamflows, in addition to potential changes to basin boundaries based on improved geologic information, correcting errors in the dataset, and requests from local agencies.  However, any changes to basin priorities will not be officially changed until after the Bulletin 118 alluvial groundwater basin boundaries are updated in 2016.  The basin prioritization update process will include public meetings or workshops to solicit data not available to DWR.