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0014'/ i Preliminary Report -8- September 27, 1960 . Robert O. Thomas, F. ASCE, California Department of Water Resources stated in Chapter VI, of the draft manuscript, "Manual of Ground Water Basin Management": . "The existence or occurrence of water in the interstices of the materials composing the crust of the earth is not a separable, independent physical phenomenon but is inextricably linked with the preceding and succeeding phases of the hydrologic cycle. In passing through that cycle from precipitation, through infi ltration and surface runoff, to capture and use, either by nature or by works of man, and finally to evaporation and return to the atmosphere, to f all again as precipitation, the water droplets many times pass through the state of temporary detention in underground storage. Such a broad concept is philosophically correct when made without regard to time, whether such be counted in minutes or in eons. Consequently, all subsurface water, even that which has been trapped under- ground for untold ages, is a part of the common supply and subject to the ra tural laws covering hydrologic phenomena. It follows therefrom that man cannot increase the common supply, although by the application of scientific principles to the conserva- tion and use of the available water, he can so manage the available supplies as to increase the benefits to be gained through the utilization of this constantly renewed, and most important, natural resource. Suitable surface locations for conservation and control of water supplies are diminishing in number as development of such sites progresses. At the same time, agricultural, suburban, and recreational land uses are impinging on the remaining sites at a rapid rate. Increasing construct ion costs for major water control structures, and the inherent waste in dissipating costly supplies through evaporation, combine to enhance the natural advantages of utilizing available underground storage capacity for cyclic storage and regulation of the vast supplies necessary to maintain our national development. ,.' Utilization of ground water reservoirs for the maximum benefit to the area involved is dependent upon adequate geologic and hydrologic data, from which tre results to be expected as a consequence of development can be esfimated. PrerequiS lte to the full development of ground water storage is adequate technical information, includi ng the basic data necessary for application of - 23 -