If agriculture won't change its practices, the solution is to pump the aquifers dry as quickly as possible agriculture is most exposed to, and then to acquire the land at a steep discount (based on the impaired future ag productivity) for conservation in a land trust.
If the price of water for residential consumptions rises too much, the humans would probably vote in favor of things that would make insane agricultural consumption unviable.
Property taxes that accurately account for the relative value of property with water rights vs those that don’t. Excise taxes on water pumping. Etc.
The problem is that they don’t pay their fair share. Farms get insanely low rates and grow things like alfalfa that doesn’t even feed people but requires an insane amount of water.
Las Vegas recycles almost 100% of its indoor water usage and minimizes outdoor usage. They pay you to remove your lawn and almost all of them are gone.
In 5-10 years, if this ends up like many are predicting (and I don’t know if it will or not), you are going to see people by the hundreds or thousands appealing their property tax assessments, saying their land is effectively worthless if water is too expensive or unavailable. They’ll get denied but some of them will contest the denial and file suit. And eventually one wins in court. Then everyone contests and everyone wins. And the only land that can be taxed has water rights. And unless the farmer plans to get his alfalfa to market via helicopter, he’s gonna have to pay the taxes or the roads disappear. He’s proper F’ed.
> alfalfa that doesn’t even feed people but requires an insane amount of water
Just because people don't eat the alfalfa doesn't mean it isn't ultimately feeding people. Cows eat a ton of alfalfa, and we get both meat and milk from them. So it is feeding people, just indirectly.
2: > The water footprint of the soy milk product analysed in this study is 28% of the water footprint of the global average cow milk. The water footprint of the soy burger examined here is 7% of the water footprint of the average beef burger in the world.
3: > [caloric and protein] At 3% in both metrics, beef is by far the least efficient [...] legume-dominated plant-based diets substitute beef with a dietary shift potential of ≈190 million [current US] individuals.
The problem is that because farmers pay artificially low prices for their subsidized water, it distorts the price signals of the market. Who says cattle need to eat alfalfa? If they had to pay market rates for water, we’d probably find a more suitable crop that doesn’t need quite so much. But there’s no incentive right now to even try.