Leveraging Water Markets to Secure Water for Nature and Agriculture

This project aims to offer a promising approach to sustainable and responsible management of California's water resources. The California chapter of The Nature Conservancy is pioneering two initiatives that use a novel combination of data analytics and water markets to meet freshwater conservation goals and improve the overall management and drought resiliency of California water resources. The project, carried out in the Central Valley and in western Ventura County, will explore the use of advanced metering infrastructure to facilitate water quantity trades to help meet new groundwater regulations. Another component of the project seeks to deploy private capital to more efficiently apportion water for natural, agricultural, industrial and municipal uses.