Visualizing Urban Water Data for Drought Management Across California

California is known for its susceptibility to drought, caused in part by a misallocation of water resources and an increase in demand. Critical drought related information is reported to multiple state agencies, separating important data and limiting access, leading to the underutilization and poor integration of data into water management. To address this, the California Water Data Consortium developed an open-source portal that consolidates and organizes data from both the Department of Water Resources and the California State Water Resources Board. This project assists the Consortium by creating a governance report, including gap analyses and staff training recommendations, to further clean and maintain the data. The project also creates an online dashboard, making it easy for water managers with limited time or coding experience to analyze the data and identify critical missing values that could lead to misinterpretation. By improving data accessibility and usability, this project aims to strengthen California’s drought resilience by providing information that can support coordinated water management.  

Acknowledgements

California Water Data Consortium: Hannah Ake, Senior Program Manager; Dr. Robyn Grimm, CEO & President 

FlowWest: Ashley Vizek, Senior Data Scientist 

California Department of Water Resources: Dr. Julie Ekstrom, Senior Environmental Scientist;  Zoe Kanavas, Water Resource Engineer 

Bren School: Dr. Carmen Galaz García, Assistant Teaching Professor; Sandy Sum, Teaching Assistant & Ph.D. candidate; Dr. Naomi Tague, Professor