UC Santa Barbara

A theory of sustainable groundwater exploitation is presented in this article. The core of the article is a general formulation of the mathematical programming problem whose solution-when it exists-produces sustainable pumping rates. A simplified quadratic, linearly constrained, version of the general formulation is implemented and solved to calculate sustainable pumping rates in terms of diverse economic and hydraulic factors. The calculated pumping rates confirm the desirability of sustainable groundwater strategies judged by aquifer and economic performance.