2026 Special Event – Open Water Data Showcase

To celebrate our 10 years of Open and Transparent Water Data Act in California, the Department of Water Resources and State Water Board present an opportunity to show what you have done (or can do!) with our open water data. This event will be a light “data challenge” style event, essentially a showcase with no judging or awards. Final projects may be featured on the Water Challenge website. Here are the rules for participating:

    1. All submissions must use at least one open water data source from either of our two open data platforms: the California Natural Resources Agency Open Data, and the California Open Data Portal.
    2. October 1st is the mid-point showcase, with opportunities to highlight projects or ongoing ideas.
    3. A virtual announcement with the final submissions with be given at the end of the year

This year’s open water showcase encourages submissions of all types – for example, data dashboards, open-source tools, infographics, poems, art, etc. The only requirement is that the submission MUST use our open water data. Challenge questions can be reviewed from prior water challenge events (2019 and 2023 winning submissions), but here is a short list of possible priority questions on our minds:

  • One California Landscape: How can we create a flexible spatial framework for California’s diverse landscapes that supports water accounting, the California Water Plan, and other water-resource management needs?
  • The Value of Water: Can we quantify the economic, environmental, and societal value created by sustainable groundwater management?
  • Who Gets the Green? Is the grass really greener on rich people’s yard—and what can water and spatial data tell us about environmental inequality?
  • From Water Data to Regulatory Intelligence: How can Large Language Models (LLMs) augment water regulators by connecting data, regulations, evidence, and analysis?
  • Future of Open Data: Can we design and prototype a reusable data infrastructure that allows heterogeneous California water datasets to be discovered, understood, accessed, connected, and analyzed programmatically?

Highlighted Datasets

California’s water data landscape is extensive and spans many agencies, topics, spatial scales, and time periods. To help participants get started, we have highlighted a selection of datasets that may be particularly useful for exploring this year’s challenge themes.

These datasets represent a starting point—not a prescribed list. Participants are encouraged to explore, combine, and connect these and other publicly available datasets to develop their ideas.

Explore the highlighted datasets below to discover data on:

Have questions about the California Water Data Challenge? Join our Information Session on August 31, 2026, 11AM-12PM to learn more about the challenge, explore the available datasets, and ask questions before getting started. DWR and State Water Board data practitioners will be available to answer questions about the challenge, available datasets, and how to get started.