The California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) of 2014 mandates new groundwater sustainability agency (GSA) formation, groundwater sustainability plan (GSP) preparation and implementation, and quantitative demonstration of sustainability within 20 years based on six sustainability indicators. The new GSAs have the authority to conduct investigations, register and require extraction reporting, regulate de minimis users (<2.4 ML/year), manage extractions but not affect water rights, acquire land, appropriate and acquire rights, import surface and groundwater, charge fees and more.  The GSPs must include the groundwater basin hydrogeologic conceptual model, water budget and uncertainties, monitoring program and data gaps. SGMA also requires that the GSP include quantitative sustainable management criteria including minimum thresholds, measurable objectives, and interim (five-year) milestones to demonstrate progress towards sustainability indicators of groundwater levels, groundwater storage, groundwater quality, and extraction related land subsidence, depletion of surface water, and deep basin saline and seawater intrusion. The GSP must also contain projects and management actions as needed to achieve sustainability, and an implementation plan including schedule, cost estimate and funding plan. One of the positive SGMA process elements has been bringing together diverse stakeholders from all parts of society to work together to meet SGMA mandates. This typically includes developing a common understanding of the requirements, hydrogeologic conceptual model and water budget, working together to define what constitutes a significant and unreasonable undesirable result for sustainable management criteria, and negotiating GSP implementation. The state has championed and funded informed decision-making through several data collection and dissemination programs, which also includes facilitation and outreach services to support discussions and education of the local communities. These programs comprise collection of groundwater data, remote sensing data on land subsidence and land use-crop type, monitoring well installations, regional groundwater modelling, air-, land-, and water-based geophysics to map aquifers, and online tools to visualize and evaluate state-provided datasets. These online tools are designed to assist in developing refined hydrostratigraphic and texture models through data fusion of borehole lithology, geophysics, geology and hydrogeology datasets. Another state initiative has been to increase recharge during seasonally high precipitation and runoff events through FloodMAR and expedited permitting. The state has also recently initiated a new Basin Characterization Exchange meeting series and network space for the groundwater community to connect on issues and cross-pollinate.