White House, California agencies announce Water Data Challenge winners

FlowWest’s Sustainable Floodplain Habitat Finder application has emerged as the winner of the 2016 White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and State of California Water Data Challenge. Three California State agencies – the Natural Resources Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Government Operations Agency – joined with the White House’s CEQ for this first-time water data challenge.

Event participants were challenged to leverage open source technology and available water information and data to support decisions around California’s water reliability and sustainability of resources. The Water Data Challenge was inspired by President Barack Obama’s commitment to improving open data and government, and demonstrated the potential for collaboration, transparency and innovation, to solve challenging water management problems.

Thirty-four entries were submitted to the challenge and included submissions from a diverse group of citizen volunteers, consulting firms, student teams and non-governmental organizations. The judging of the projects was held on Dec. 9. The winning entry was among eight finalist projects.

FlowWest’s winning Sustainable Floodplain Habitat Finder app uses four different datasets to provide insights into where and when to target the best floodplain habitat for juvenile salmon. The judges were struck by FlowWest’s ability to find a unique and important problem suitable for a data driven solution. In spite of the short time-frame of the contest the team was also able to develop a prototype of a tool with live data connections.

“It was nothing short of extraordinary to bring that level of thought, data and effort to bear on an important problem in such a short timeframe,” said Mark Gold, event judge and assistant vice chair for sustainability at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The judges for the challenge represented a diverse background and included representatives from the California State Water Board, the California Natural Resources Agency, Moulton Niguel Water District, the University of California at Los Angeles, the Civic Technology and “Nerds for Nature” community, the Bay-Delta Science Program and the Public Policy Institute of California. The judges represented a mix of data science experts and water policy leaders.

In addition to FlowWest, the judges recognized four other finalists:

• The California Data Collaborative team had two entries in the finals. Their Water Efficiency Explorer, was given special mention in the Urban Water Supply category.
• Point Blue and the United States Geological Survey (USGS)’s Automated Water Resources Tracking System was given special mention in the Ecosystem Health Category.
• Two citizen volunteer teams were recognized as Rising Innovators and were awarded professional development time with each of the three California agencies involved. The entries were

o   Team Will Work for Froude’s Water Supply App, and

o   Team Storage AF’s entry, Providing Context to a Proposed Shasta Dam Expansion.

All finalists and their exhibition submissions can be found at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yk_mIFK1WIlKTUvShKqi_GaOpHdvtOLbqu_bm2kQJ4w/edit?ts=5848ace7#gid=0

The entries were evaluated on technical competence and capabilities, use of data to provide effective outcomes, creativity and innovation, and valuable information and insights regarding data.

The platform supporting the challenge is run by the California Government Operations Agency. For more information on this effort please visit: https://data.ca.gov/. For more information on the Water Boards’ open data efforts please visit the Water Board Data and Databases website at: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/resources/data_databases/. The California Water Data Challenge’s website is: http://waterchallenge.data.ca.gov. The Twitter access to the State Water Board’s open water data team is: Twitter@CaWaterDataDive or by using the hashtag #thirsty4data.