2018 California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge

4 months, 25+ machine-readable datasets, 15 events, $12,000 in ‘big checks’, and 20+ open data projects

These are (some!) of the numbers, but they don’t tell the entire story of the California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge — and the immeasurable energy, enthusiasm, interest, collaboration, momentum, and as one organizer put it, “heart” that resulted from it.

The California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge kicked off in June as a collaborative effort to engage the data community in the fight to bring safe, clean and affordable drinking water to every Californian. This confluence of factors from the 2012 Human Right to Water bill, California’s 2016 Open and Transparent Water Data act, the heightened awareness of unsafe water via the crisis in Flint, MI and the proposed Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, led to a recipe for action.

An Opportunity to Address Water Challenges

On any given day in California, around 200,000 Californians turn on their taps and the water that comes out is unsafe to drink and may be unsafe to use for basic needs like bathing. Annually, up to 1 million Californians lack access to clean, safe drinking water at some point during the year. Droughts and other disruptions in water supply can limit or eliminate access to safe drinking water for days, months, or years. Some communities have been exposed to unsafe water for more than a decade.

Small water systems and domestic well users are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in their access to safe drinking water. While the most publicized examples are in rural areas of the state, delivering sufficient, safe, and affordable drinking water poses a challenge to small systems and domestic well users in almost every region of the state. Many of the most vulnerable systems and domestic well users rely primarily on […]

Full article: 2018 California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge

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