No wonder California is looking Down Under for help with its record drought. Unlike Australia, where water is tightly regulated and tracked by meters, usage in parts of California is unmonitored, urban supply remains cheap, and aquifers can be tapped by almost any landowner with a permit to drill a well. “We are very, very inefficient as a society on how we use water,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, which regulates supplies for 39 million residents in California, the nation’s biggest water user and top agricultural producer.