California Data Collaborative (CaDC) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and network of water professionals collaborating to support the planning and analysis needed to ensure a reliable and resilient water supply in California.
We’re building a community that creates open-source software, data, standards, and applied research to empower local water suppliers on the ground and put their data to use for planning and policy.
As focus on conservation and water efficiency continues to increase in California, state and local agencies should be encouraged to use and share data via the cloud-based data sharing platform to evaluate current actions, identify opportunities, and develop new strategies that bring greater water reliability to Californians while striking a balance between efficiency and local supply development.
Actual water use data should be used to analyze water usage trends by customer class, geographic area, hydrologic features and other unique local characteristics; to identify opportunities for future demand management programs to address further conservation within the state; and to make conservation a water of life in California through effective demand management programs.
Any future statewide conservation standard should be founded in the analysis of good data, and good data should inform local and statewide strategic demand management decisions. That data should include water use data from a varied group of water agencies, and be adaptive to and customizable for the unique needs of California’s diverse communities.
This data should be used for conducting analytics to identify opportunities to refine demand management strategies and promote long-term sustainable solutions for natural resources management.
California’s water agencies should be encouraged to integrate customer-level water usage data in a single centralized, secure platform to create a source for data on water use that can be used in:
Conducting analytics to inform local and statewide strategic demand management decisions;
Developing more robust measurements of water usage behavior across California; and
Illustrating how water use efficiency can be achieved statewide.
Any new data infrastructure developed for California should integrate the entire lifecycle of California’s water usage data, streamline the process water agencies currently undertake when reporting data to the State, and be able to adapt to whatever the future holds.
Customer privacy should be retained above all else. Any proposed framework for sharing water use data should protect consumer privacy. Data should not be reported in a manner that could result in the identification of a customer.