Disagreements over water in California were historically around dams, but this scenario is swiftly changing with the rise of water data.

In this digital age, new and innovative tools are enabling more companies, governments, and non-profits to measure the uses of California water in minute detail, which allows them to build more water-efficient products, replace expensive and inefficient infrastructure, and boost water conservation.

This is however, leading to rather bitter water data wars as the abundance of water data effectively makes every drop of water on every piece of land in California the subject of measurement. The data also exposes the deficiencies and fragmentation of California’s system of water management.

California’s recent five-year drought caused the state to impose mandatory restrictions on water use that required 400 local water agencies to reduce usage by 25% in 2015. It also caused all Californians to rethink their use of water and affect lifestyle changes in an attempt to save every drop of water possible.

The new water data is raising various questions, including:

  1. How much water savings, can be demand from farmworker housing that draws on groundwater in the fields?
  2. What incentives will convince most people to remove their grass lawns and, if they do, how much water do those removals save?
  3. How much water do efficient toilets and appliances really conserve? Exactly how much water is being lost to leaks—and where can the most efficient investments to stop them be made?
  4. How precisely is the evapotranspiration—the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from soil and by transpiration from plants – being measured?

When a state pilot project attempted to measure landscape, it found that there was no consensus on defining landscape areas or how to calculate them among 20 water agencies.

Younger, tech-savvy water warriors say that the problem is that data undergirding California water use is old or faulty.

“There is an urgent need to modernize how California’s water agencies manage data,” wrote Patrick Atwater of the L.A.-based non-profit ARGO in an open letter to Governor Brown. “Achieving the broader urban water efficiencies will require creativity and finesse, not simply command and control regulation,” he added.

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