Kern Subbasin GSP- December 2024
The Amended Kern County Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) has been prepared by 20 GSAs and one coordinated groundwater management area during December of 2024.
The Subbasin is entirely contained within Kern County. Land use designations are predominantly agricultural and industrial oilfields, followed by urban, suburban and rural communities. The largest metropolitan area is a medium-sized urban population in the City of Bakersfield with suburban sprawl in the unincorporated Kern County. The Subbasin also has several small urban areas and rural communities. A comprehensive, multisource dataset is maintained to tabulate land uses across the entire Subbasin. The primary land uses in the Kern Subbasin are:
- 657,000 acres of active agriculture (36.2% of plan area)
- 600,000 acres of native land (33.1% of plan area)
- 256,000 acres of idle agriculture (14.1% of the plan area)
- 149,000 acres of urban, suburban, and rural communities (8.2% of the plan area)
- 91,000 acres of industrial oil fields (5.0% of the plan area)
- 62,000 acres of other uses (3.4% of the plan area)
All GSAs use the Kern County Subbasin GSP elements as its foundational Plan; however, six GSAs provide supplemental information that is inserted as blue pages throughout their GSP.
All documents can be found at the GSP webpage below.
