The Second Colorado River Basin Data and Modeling Roundtable: Webinar

The Western States Water Council is hosting this second roundtable as a follow-up to the first “Internet of Water Roundtable: Colorado River Basin,” organized by the Aspen Institute and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions in January 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Aspen Institute’s Dialogue Series on water data led to its report, “Internet of Water: Sharing and Integrating Water Data for Sustainability,” which presented a vision for a national policy framework to address institutional barriers to scaling and integrating water data and information to support sustainable water management. The first roundtable recommended continuing discussions and coordination among three ongoing projects, the Internet of Water (IoW), the Water Data Exchange (WaDE) program, and the OpenET project.

 

This second roundtable will bring together groups from Colorado River Basin federal and state agencies to present progress over the last year and discuss the next steps on modeling and data sharing.  The projects’ teams are working toward laying a foundation of open and interoperable water data and all have significant applications for water management in the Colorado River basin. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and concerns, the roundtable was adapted to a 2-day webinar. 

Roundtable Goals

  • Serve as a forum for the Colorado River Basin States, federal agencies, and others to discuss efforts in mapping and reconciling differences in water use estimates and data sharing
  • Highlight what has been accomplished across the OpenET, IOW, and WaDE projects to estimate water use, reconcile water glossaries and budget models, and demonstrate WaDE 2.0 platform
  • Report on progress on water data initiatives and laws in state and federal agencies
  • Identify areas of mutual interest and ways to collaborate; and offer some practical, on-the-ground next steps on how the OpenET, WaDE, and IOW projects can further help the Colorado Basin States.

Agenda and Meeting Materials

The agenda and meeting materials are posted here: 2020 Colorado Basin Roundtable Materials.

Participants

The roundtable will draw around 40 participants from the WaDE, OpenET, and IOW projects and from invited policy and decision-makers from federal and state agencies and researchers across the seven Colorado River Basin States: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming.

Presentations and Recordings

Wednesday Webinar

Progress on Water Data Initiatives Update

  • Internet of Water Update: Ashley Ward, Senior Policy Associate and Kyle Onda, Data Architect –Internet of Water
  • OpenET Project Update: Robyn Grimm, Senior Manager – Water Information Systems -Environmental Defense Fund, and Forrest Melton, Program Scientist – NASA Western Water Application Office (WWAO)
  • Water Data Exchange (WaDE) Program Update:  Adel Abdallah, Program Manager and Ryan James, Data Analyst –Western States Water Council

Colorado River Basin: State Water Data Initiatives – Progress on Modeling Water Use and Sharing Data

  • Wyoming:  Jodee Pring, Supervisor, River Basin Planning – Wyoming and  Water Development Office AND Charlie Ferrantelli, River Basin Coordinator – Wyoming State Engineer’s Office
  • California AB1755: Streamlining Water Data Submissions to the State Joaquin Esquivel, Board Chair – California Control Board and Kamyar Guivetchi, Manager, Division of Planning – California Department of Water Resources
  • Colorado River Basin Consumptive Use and Loss Reporting:  James Prairie, Hydrologic Engineer – Bureau of Reclamation

 

Thursday Webinar

Colorado River Basin: State Water Data Initiatives – Progress on Modeling Water Use and Sharing Data

  • Arizona: Kyle Miller, Planning Manager – Arizona Department of Water Resources and Marcus Shapiro, Water Systems Supervisor – Central Arizona Project
  • Colorado: Rebecca Mitchell, Director and Brian Macpherson, Decision Support System Specialist – Colorado Water Conservation Board
  • Nevada: Seth Shanahan, Colorado River Programs Manager – Southern Nevada Water Authority
  • Utah: Todd Stonely, Assistant Director, Utah Division of Water Resources
  • New Mexico: Stacy Timmons – Associate Director, Hydrogeology – New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, and Rolf Schmidt Petersen, Director – New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission

Date

May 27 - 28 2020

Time

All day

The event is finished.