Abstract
The earliest engineering and hydrogeologic thoughts were to manage groundwater sustainably, although the focus was on maximizing production from aquifers for the sole benefit of human use. C.H. Lee first introduced the concept for and name of safe yield for groundwater in 1915, the term continues to be used, a testament to its usefulness. As discussions progressed and society’s needs evolved, safe yield’s tent appropriately expanded from Lee’s focus on preventing nonsustainable use to also include impacts to water quality, land subsidence, existing pumping rights, and economics. Several experts realized that determinations of safe yield needed to be adaptive to respond to an improved understanding of the aquifer and how groundwater development progressed. Although there was a lot of handwringing over the ambiguity of safe yield, that ambiguity was somewhat embraced in the 1960s as a necessity—an ambiguity that continued to serve the concept well. D.K. Todd produced the best definition at the time: “the amount of water which can be withdrawn from it annually without producing an undesired result.”
“the growing popularity of ground-water supply for irrigation and the heavy drafts made possible by improved pumping machinery and cheap power are giving rise to conditions of dangerous overdraft on many of the so-called inexhaustible underground water supplies.”
Charles H. Lee ( 1915 )
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Mace, R.E. (2022). From Safe Yield to Where?. In: Groundwater Sustainability. Palgrave Studies in Environmental Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13516-3_4
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