Groundwater Accounting Platform

Creating a sustainable future
for water resources

Photo of California farmlands

About the Platform

Groundwater Accounting Platform screenshot

The Problem

Why is the platform needed?

Photo of California farmlands

California's reliance on groundwater during extreme environmental conditions

Water is critical to a vibrant and prosperous California. As the State's water infrastructure ages and climate change strains California's water resources, it is critical that State and local agencies, and communities have the information and tools necessary to manage irregular and unpredictable water supplies.

Photo of California farmlands

Overdrafting impacts people, communities, and businesses

In the midst of a severe drought, groundwater pumping increased, and wells were dug deeper and deeper. Groundwater overpumping caused wells to dry up and land to sink, leading communities to run out of drinking water and millions of dollars of infrastructure damage.

Photo of California farmlands

Avoiding the worst case scenarios

Without sustainable groundwater practices, California is susceptible to irreversible outcomes like land subsidence, seawater intrusion, degraded water quality, and depleted groundwater aquifers.

The Solution

You can’t manage what you can’t measure

Photo of California farmlands

SGMA: the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act requires local agencies to better understand, track and account for groundwater use across designated basins.

In 2014, the California Legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) establishing a statewide framework to protect groundwater resources over the long-term. It requires local agencies to form groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) in priority basins and to develop and implement groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) to mitigate undesirable outcomes over the 20 year plan implementation horizon.

Groundwater Accounting Platform screenshot

The Groundwater Accounting Platform enables water managers, growers, and water users across California to track water availability and use in near real-time.

Climate change and population growth are driving many communities to make tough decisions about water use. It is more important than ever that water managers and agricultural water users have access to the best possible data to guide these decisions and balance supply and demand. To chart a sustainable future for water resources, the open-source Groundwater Accounting Platform was developed to provide an easy to use, cost-effective option for groundwater accounting.

Photo of California farmlands

Tools for Local Authority are built into the Groundwater Accounting Platform.

The Groundwater Accounting Platform integrates information from OpenET and other sources, along with scenario planning functionality, allowing GSAs to plan and prepare under different scenarios. The tool can be used to support local decision-making by providing district managers and landowners with a state-supported accounting tool that communicate water budgets and accounting under SGMA.

Groundwater Accounting Platform screenshot

Scenario Planning is integrated into the Platform using the open-source Groundwater Evaluation Toolbox.

The Groundwater Accounting Platform includes scenario planning functionality using the open-source Groundwater Evaluation Toolbox (GET), developed by Olsson. This addition enables users to run model scenarios to assess the impacts of pumping, water trading, recharge, and other potential management scenarios. These scenario runs can support refinement of existing water budgets and the management actions to achieve long-term groundwater sustainability.