California agencies partner to create open-source groundwater accounting platform
SACRAMENTO, CA – Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), state water agencies and the California Water Data Consortium announced a new partnership on May 11 to make an open-source groundwater accounting platform freely available to help groundwater sustainability agencies manage the transition to sustainable supplies.
The open-source platform enables water managers and landowners to track water supplies and use, create water budgets, model scenarios and trade allocations of water within a district or basin.
EDF, an international environmental organization, has been working with Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District in Kern County since 2018 to develop and pilot use of the platform in order to facilitate innovative water management and protect disadvantaged communities and ecosystems.
Collaborative efforts are underway among the Department of Water Resources (DWR), the State Water Resources Control Board, the Consortium and EDF to adapt and scale the groundwater accounting platform. Use of the groundwater accounting platform is entirely voluntary.
“Our goal is to help groundwater managers more easily and cost-effectively track water use across their agencies and coordinate within and across basins to find the most effective approach for enabling sustainable groundwater management,” said Steven Springhorn, acting deputy director at DWR for statewide groundwater management. “The accounting platform developed by EDF is a valuable tool for local decision making, and the Water Data Consortium is a natural fit for ensuring the platform meets local and state needs long term.”
“An accounting system is the crucial backbone to managing groundwater and balancing supply and demand — you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” said Christina Babbitt, senior manager of EDF’s California Groundwater Program. “Bringing groundwater supplies into balance is a challenge that demands new, innovative solutions and partnerships, like the one announced today.”
DWR and the Water Board are working with EDF and the Consortium to ensure that the platform is compatible with the online electronic portals that local agencies use to submit data to the state, such as DWR’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) Portal and the Water Board’s Groundwater Extraction Annual Reporting System (GEARS).
The partners are working to expand the platform’s features to provide a cost-effective option for local agencies. State agencies do not require use of the accounting platform. Local agencies will continue to have the option to develop and use other accounting and trading platforms.
Under the historic Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) of 2014, more than 250 local agencies have been formed to bring groundwater basins into sustainable conditions over the next two decades. The law was enacted in the midst of severe drought in which overpumping groundwater caused hundreds of drinking water wells to go dry and land to sink, damaging canals, roads and bridges.
Since the last drought, the state has made significant investments to support local groundwater sustainability agencies as they work to bring basins into sustainable conditions through a variety of approaches, including finding additional supplies to recharge basins; reducing water use through efficiency measures, changing cropping patterns, or strategic fallowing of farmland; and efficient and equitable groundwater trading.
The state also is weighing how to ensure that any groundwater trading that develops in response to SGMA protects disadvantaged communities, ecosystems and other water users. Well-designed water trading programs are one of many tools that local agencies are considering for managing groundwater sustainably, and an accounting system is the first step for such programs.
The California Water Commission is expected to begin public workshops on water trading this summer and distill conclusions from the public discussions by the end of the year.
SOURCE: Environmental Defense Fund
