Utilities Key To Filling Gaps In California's Water Data, Report Says

California has a water-data scarcity problem and experts say utilities have a role in fixing that.

A new report from the think tank Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reveals gaps in the state’s water-information systems. It also makes recommendations on how the state can improve its water data. “The latest drought has highlighted critical weaknesses in California’s water accounting that challenged effective oversight and management of the state’s water resources,” the report said.

Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at PPIC, described the problem, per News Deeply: “It’s kind of surprising how little we know about some of these issues. There is much room for improvement. California has one of the world’s most complex [water] systems. But once we have said that, we have to acknowledge we are using 20th-century technologies and practices that can’t meet information demands of the 21st century.”

One problem area: data on use of groundwater.

“The absence of groundwater accounting in many rural areas — including clear rules on pumping rights and measurement of volumes pumped — has contributed to long-term depletion of groundwater in many basins. These information gaps heightened tensions during the drought, as water tables declined and wells went dry from increased pumping,” the report said.

The solution, according to the report, starts with setting a goal around modernizing water accounting. Water utilities can play a key role as the state moves ahead, according to the report.

“This statewide effort should seek to leverage the strong SCADA systems that most large urban utilities and many irrigation districts already use to support their daily operations and planning. These systems are already funded, tested, and relied upon locally and could become the basis for assembling larger regional and state accounting systems needed for administering water rights, implementing SGMA, managing ecosystems, and other purposes,” the report said.

Measurement is a central part of California’s problem, according to PPIC.

“Only about a third of California’s farm wells have meters measuring how much they are pumping. And when a farmer opens a weir gate to flood a lettuce field, for instance, that’s almost always unmetered. The state isn’t monitoring a lot of important small streams, and it’s not pulling the riverflow data together at the basin level. You need that data to figure out how to restrict water and protect fish,” Grist reported, citing the think tank.

The think tank called on California to “measure the flow from water diversions and wells in real time. It should also measure how much water goes back into rivers, or seeps into the ground after it’s used,” Grist reported.

For more on California’s drought visit Water Online’s Water Scarcity Solutions Center.