over 8 years ago

Building solutions to California’s drought: Additional resources

Around the time the news broke about California’s water emergency, the New York Times ran an impressive graphic illustrating how many gallons of water are required to grow the Golden State produce, dairy, and meat products that we consume every day. The data is arresting — 42.5 gallons for three mandarin oranges, 86 gallons for less than two ounces of beef — so we took a look at the data sources the Times used to generate their report.

Turns out there’s a wellspring (forgive the pun) of information out there, so we wanted to share some tools we think you may find helpful. Use them to gather data to inform your ARTIK project, or just to get some background on the drought’s biggest contributing factors.

1. Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis Export Data: Estimates of California's agricultural exports, by year

http://aic.ucdavis.edu/pub/exports.html

2. Pacific Institute Tools for Water Managers: Modeling tools, simulators, and informational resources

http://pacinst.org/resources/tools-for-water-managers/

3. California Department of Water Resources Drought Background: Drought background overview and accompanying documents, including the U.S. Geological Survey

http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/background.cfm

4. Water Footprint Network Resources: Interactive tools, statistics, and publications

http://waterfootprint.org/en/resources/

As always, feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about the hackathon or your project by emailing support@challengepost.com.