“Let’s hack!” Those two words launched Environmental Science Associates’ (ESA’s) first-ever hackathon as part of the Groundwater Accounting Platform Showcase event on September 9, 2025, at the California Natural Resources Agency building in Sacramento.
The showcase was equal parts education and celebration, recognizing the three-year partnership between the California Water Data Consortium, Environmental Defense Fund, Olsson, and ESA who together, with funding from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Bureau of Reclamation, launched the Groundwater Accounting Platform (Platform). The Platform enables water managers, landowners, and water users to track groundwater availability and usage with user-friendly dashboards and workflows.
Nearly 75 people attended the half-day event, which kicked off with a panel discussion moderated by DWR’s Steven Springhorn that highlighted how the Platform has supported growers and water managers across California since its public launch in 2024. The panel included representatives from local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) including Matt Beaman from Merced Irrigation-Urban GSA, Lacey McBride from Merced Subbasin GSA, and Mike Tietze from East Turlock Subbasin GSA, along with Jim Schneider, a hydrogeologist in water resources at Olsson. The panelists shared their perspectives on how the Platform has enabled them to support California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The panelists discussed many different topics during their 75 minutes together including: why and how their agencies adopted the Platform; how to build trust and socialize the tool; how the agencies plan to expand their use of the Platform for scenario planning, fee calculation, and land repurposing; and the challenges and breakthroughs in getting growers to use the tool.
As Lacey McBride noted: “Seeing that what [the growers] said was responded to, and we made changes in the platform based on their feedback, was really helpful … [it made them] want to use it and then tell their neighbors.” Watch the full recording of the panel presentation.
After the panel, attendees split up into two concurrent sessions. Some watched a live demonstration of the Platform, led by ESA’s Kathleen Elmquist and Savannah Tjaden, who showcased its core functionality and addressed audience questions in real time using the tool.
Others teamed up with ESA software developers—John Burns, Ray Lee, Liz Christeleit, Mack Peters, Jamie Quishenberry, and Andrew Lovseth—for a two-hour hackathon to learn and apply “vibe coding.” The six teams worked with an AI assistant to describe their intentions in natural language, then let the AI generate the code to retrieve, analyze, and combine data directly from the Platform.
The teams guided, edited, and tested the AI outputs to answer real-world questions related to subsidence, fallowing practices, and groundwater well identification.
It was an eye-opening experience for everyone in the room and led to some interesting findings that will be applied to future Platform updates based on the use cases the six teams conceived and applied.
Congratulations to the winning hackathon team—Andy Lovseth with ESA, Lacey McBride with Merced Subbasin GSA, Adriel Ramirez with Zanjero, and Noah Lopez with Western Resource Strategies, LLC.
To learn more about the Groundwater Accounting Platform, visit: www.groundwateraccounting.org, check out our short video, or reach out to ESA’s John Burns.
