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Q&A: Talking with Greg Gearheart, State Water Board’s Data Chief

In his role as deputy director of the Office of Information Management and Analysis, Gearheart is now leading the board’s initiative on open data and working with the Government Operations Agency, which runs the state’s open data portal, to provide more detailed information about California water and how people are using it.

When Greg Gearheart applied two years ago to be the chief of the Office of Information Management and Analysis at the State Water Resources Control Board, he pitched the notion that government ought to be more data-centric, tapping into the wealth of information it stores to guide decision-making.

In his role, Gearheart is now leading the board’s initiative on open data and working with the Government Operations Agency, which runs the state’s open data portal, to provide more detailed information about California water and how people are using it.

Among Gearheart’s initiatives last year was a partnership with the White House Council on Environmental Quality and three other state agencies to present a California Water Data Challenge — inviting the private sector to come up with data tools that could improve the state’s water management system.

In 2017, the board is working with other state agencies to create an online water data information system called for by lawmakers with the 2016 passage of the Open and Transparent Water Data Act, AB 1755.

Gearheart recently sat down with Techwire to talk about open data at the board.

 Q: How difficult is it to pursue an open data agenda at the water board?

We don’t have to go through the emotional process about what does it mean to be open, and we currently share our information. Our data, it belongs to the public, and that’s the belief I and others here have.

Some people want to control the story. They say, "We’ll give you the data but we want to make sure we analyze it and write it up." But that model is disrupted by new technologies, desires and impatience.

Q: What’s the benefit of open data?

Freeing up the data does a couple of things. It dispels the mythology that we’re hiding something and gives the public access to the data they own.

On the internal side, we have a lot of work to do to become a true data-driven organization. People don’t know the data is there or they think it’s too much work or they don’t have the skills.

Q: Have you trained staff on open data?

We’ve rolled out some courses. We have a team data science club. People can show up and talk about using Tableau and shiny apps. It’s consumer-based and informal. There’s a lot of interest, but our bandwidth is limited.

Q: How do you prioritize the datasets you put online?

The legislation, AB 1755, the Dodd Bill, helped. In that legislation, we can read the tea leaves. For example, we need data to be more transparent so the public can get an idea of how much water is available. Knowing how people are using water and feeding it back to the Legislature and people is of great interest.

We are building a process to maintain and refresh our data sets and to have it automated. The other thing is to focus these data sets on what people want. For example, some data sets have as many as 50 fields or columns. The feedback was that was too much.

Q: How does government itself take advantage of open data?

We still make really important decisions that aren’t utilizing the data that’s available. I’m seeing traction on this idea of turning more data into information instead of relying on a report. Our board is now asking to see data.

Our data management strategy is to continue to improve the use of data for planning — assigning resources and setting priorities — and also be ready and agile to react to a situation that might come up.

Q: What’s an example of how data might be used to inform a policy decision?

In the future, we’re going to be making decisions on climate change. We’re going to have these decisions about the balancing of water supply, protecting agricultural lands, allowing agricultural lands to be flooded in the Delta, and decisions about trade-offs. You can build an infrastructure that is ready so somebody can do the analysis of the data and inform people.

Q: How many databases do you have at the Water Board?

We’re not big data. We have 20-plus enterprise systems — about five that are core to the bulk of what we do. The largest one is the newest, which we just acquired about drinking water from the Department of Public Health. That system has millions of records.


Note: This story has been edited to clarify Gearheart's role at the State Water Resources Control Board.