Nebraska’s efforts towards integrated management have the po- tential to support more adaptive approaches to water resources man- agement and could serve as a guidepost for other western states trying to find better ways to integrate divergent legal and institutional sys- tems to manage water resources. The NRD system, in conjunction with efforts toward integrated management planning, are two major efforts that have facilitated increased flexibility within Nebraska’s water management system, making it possible to pursue and support more adaptive approaches in managing water resources. In develop- ing IMPs and in addressing natural resources related problems, the DNR and local NRDs have the opportunity to tailor strategies to the problem at hand, improve accountability and enforceability, promote direct learning, and generate funding. However, the extent to which each of these best practice strategies can be achieved depends on the ability of the DNR and NRDs to work together to holistically manage connected surface and groundwater resources and their willingness to enforce and adapt their strategies when necessary.
As highlighted in the preceding section, Nebraska’s current frame- work for water resources management is not without faults. More needs to be done to continue to move the state towards greater inte- gration, namely, to expand integrated planning initiatives to NRDs throughout the state. Proactively addressing surface and ground- water issues before areas become fully appropriated or overap- propriated can provide resource managers with increased flexibility in finding ways to adapt to changing conditions down the road.
V. ADAPTIVE, INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT IN OTHER WESTERN STATES
With the realization that institutions as they existed in the past are an ill fit for addressing today’s complex and continuously changing water resource scenarios, many western states have taken steps to in- tegrate surface and groundwater systems, albeit to varying de-
southeast Nebraska, and areas with more marginal cropland like the western Sandhills region, have limited acres under irrigation. In other counties, the ma- jority of cropland is irrigated.”). For a map of irrigated acres per county, see BRUCE JOHNSON ET AL., UNIV. OF NEB.-LINCOLN DEP’T OF AGRIC. ECON., NEBRASKA
grees.241 Arguably, a failure to manage surface and groundwater in an integrated manner not only has the potential to undermine secur- ity in water use, but can inhibit a state’s ability to pursue more adap- tive approaches to manage connected water resources. A unified system of surface and groundwater management through a single framework, a single authority, and a single schedule of priorities would be the most effective way to correlate the conservation and use of hydrologically connected water resources.242 However, the lack of data in many basins about actual usage, available supplies, seasonal variability, and hydrological interactions creates uncertainty about how to best go about integration.243 Moreover, surface water users with prior appropriation rights are loath to relinquish or even con- sider limits on their seniority, making it difficult if not impossible to integrate groundwater usage, much of which is more recent, into a unitary system without creating gross inequities.244
Modifying institutional designs to create more integrated manage- ment frameworks also raises the question of state versus local control over water resources. Proponents of top-down management empha- size the vital role of the state in setting overarching policy goals and performance standards, and in providing technical expertise. In addi- tion, state involvement may be necessary because the effects of pump- ing transcend local boundaries245 and localized agencies often do not have the capacity or jurisdictional reach to coordinate broad-ranging transboundary actions and priorities.246 Even when empowered with regulatory authority, local agency action may be shortsighted and may give in to the pressure of local constituents who oppose regulation.247 Choices made by individual pumpers and irrigation districts whose board members include pumpers and their neighbors might neglect the interests of the larger region and of future generations.248
Conversely, advocates of bottom-up approaches assert that local entities, rather than state authorities, are better able to devise “work- able operating rules”249 for managing water resources based on the region’s specific physical, social, and economic conditions. Further, downsizing (or scaling down) water institutions can make agencies more accountable to local interests and needs, whereas decisions made
241. Tellman, supra note 15.
242. Sophocleous, supra note 2, at 572; Aiken, supra note 143, at 996.
243. Barton H. Thompson, Beyond Connections: Pursuing Multidimensional Conjunc-
tive Management, 47 IDAHO L. REV. 273, 282 (2011); Grant, supra note 18, at 64.
244. See supra note 23 and accompanying text. 245. HANAK ET AL., supra note 21, at 393. 246. Id. at 195.
247. Id.; see Getches, supra note 13, at 39 (observing that “[d]ecisions that caused min- ing of the Ogallala Aquifer were too localized”).
248. See HANAK ET AL., supra note 21, at 195.
at the state level can fail to realize regional variations and priorities.250
Instead of advocating for a single approach, we highlight the im- portance of integrating both state and local control in managing water resources.251 Finding ways to better integrate the management of surface and groundwater resources, through linked or nested local, state, and even federal institutional arrangements, will be vital in managing water resources into the future.
This Part looks at the efforts of other western states in moving to- ward more integrated water management strategies. Outside of Ne- braska, most western states follow a statewide approach for all water resources, but a few have experimented with local control over groundwater.252 We focus most closely on Kansas and Colorado, as- sessing their attempts to reform their institutional frameworks to achieve a more holistic approach to water resources management. We also consider positive developments in the institutional designs of Alaska, Montana, and several other western states.