In 2014, California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), requiring local agencies to balance groundwater supply and demand; Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District responded by developing an open-source, online groundwater accounting and trading platform to help the district and its landowners manage their available water supplies and comply with SGMA.
As Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District (RRB) transitions into a new era of groundwater management, this project provides water managers and landowners with an easy-to-use tool to track groundwater allocations and usage in near real-time. The RRB Water Accounting Platform was developed to meet local needs, but with a vision to scale the technology to a broader community of users via open-source software. This technology investment and the knowledge gained during this project grew into the Groundwater Accounting Platform, an open-source, configurable water accounting framework designed to scale for use by agencies and landowners throughout California and beyond.
Our technology group worked RRB and project partners to develop a web application that enables landowners and water managers to develop more accurate water budgets, efficiently manage water usage, and simplify water trading. The tool combines water supply and use data in near real time so landowners can check their water budget and outstanding balance online, similar to how they check their bank account. The platform also enables district managers to account for water across a district to meet water budgeting and enforcement needs. The trading portion of the platform was used in workshops and training sessions with landowners to explore buying and selling allocations of available water supplies via a web-based marketplace.
As we developed the Groundwater Accounting Platform, we worked closely with project partners Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Olsson, OpenET, and WestWater Research.
"We developed this accounting and trading platform because we want to provide landowners and growers with as many tools as possible to manage their water more sustainably and balance their water budget. We envision water management agencies replicating and expanding this open-source platform to serve other areas of the Central Valley and beyond."
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