Sensor Networks, Blockchain and
Groundwater Sustainability
By Danielle Dumont and Becky Rittenburg
GROUNDWATER MANAGEMENT across California is undergoing a transformation. By 2022, 127 groundwater ba-sins
that are categorized as high or medium priority by California’s Department of Water Resources must create
plans for ensuring that aquifers are managed sustainability. After that, they have until 2042 to implement the plans
and bring basins into balance. Innovative uses of technology could play a major role in the success of their sustainability
programs. At stake is the balance of a critical water supply for agricultural, municipal and environmental uses.
20 SOURCE spring 2019
BIG IDEAS
Time is Ticking: Regulatory Drivers
for California Groundwater
The Sustainable Groundwater Man-agement
Act (SGMA) passed in 2014 is one
of the most pivotal pieces of watershed
management legislation in California’s
history, linking mandatory groundwater
management to sustainability. The legis-lation
mandated the creation of Ground-water
Sustainability Agencies (GSAs),
groups formed from local agencies, such
as reclamation and water districts. GSAs
are tasked with completing Groundwater
Sustainability Plans (GSPs) in the state’s
high- and medium-priority basins by
2022 and achieving sustainability within
20 years of plan adoption. The success of
these plans will depend on robust systems
of tracking, reporting and transparency,
which have yet to be developed at scale.
For many GSAs, assigning allocations or
caps to agricultural water use is likely.
How can technology assist with this
complex natural resource challenge? Here’s
one example. During an extended drought,
a tomato farmer might choose to fallow a
field due to limited water resources. In the
same groundwater basin, a vineyard might
require additional groundwater to avoid
losing its valuable vines. Using a web-based
platform, the farmer could trade or
sell water shares to the viticulturist, who
could purchase the additional water shares
without negatively impacting the aquifer.
But how would the water use be monitored,
how would shares be tracked and would an
exchange market even exist?
Testing a New Approach:
Groundwater Share Trading Pilot
Program in Northern California
The above scenario and others
could soon be possible through a proof-of-
concept program that kicked off in
January 2019 in the Sacramento Valley.
The Freshwater Trust (TFT), a conservation
nonprofit, partnered with SweetSense Inc.,
a provider of low-cost satellite-connected
sensors, and IBM Research. The two-year
pilot program received joint funding from
the Water Foundation and the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation.
The team is developing and deploying
an Internet-of-Things (IoT) well sensor
network linked via satellite to a blockchain-enabled
platform. Using this technology,
water users can monitor and track the usage
of groundwater and demonstrate how
sustainable pumping levels can be achieved
through the trading of groundwater shares.
Between 20 and 30 groundwater pumps
within the pilot area will be equipped with
IoT sensors that remotely report to the web
platform to guarantee accurate reporting
of extraction volumes. Data is recorded as
water is used or transacted, and securely
For the groundwater share trading pilot program, The Freshwater Trust is recruiting water users
from California’s Solano Subbasin, a proposed high-priority basin which contains more than
30,000 acres of groundwater-dependent irrigated lands.