California Water Data Challenge Finalists Show Creative Side

Finalist entries in the California Water Data Challenge presented their creations during a day-long event at CalSTRS headquarters in Sacramento on Friday.

The contest, organized by several California state departments in partnership with the White House, encouraged participants to submit apps, data visualizations and other tools that support the California Water Action Plan.

Submissions were either open source or non-open source. In the open source category, solutions included water budgeting tool designed specifically for water districts, developed by Bayes Impact, water conservation data visualizations from Stanford University, a water rate comparison tool developed by the nonprofit California Data Collaborative, among others.

Entrants in the non-open source category featured a Water Planning Information Exchange system designed for the Department of Water Resources, a new statewide actual evapotranspiration data set, and a Dynamic Surface Water Monitoring system developed by the State Water Resources Control Board and UC Davis.

Judges for the event included representatives from the State Water Board, Delta Stewardship Council, Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Water Policy Center, and other public- and private-sector groups.

The California Water Data Challenge Web page contains full information about the contest and all the submissions.