Automating Land and Water Data Integration for Future Planning and Informed Decision-Making

The Internet of Water Initiative (IoW) at the Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy aims to advance the modernization of public water data infrastructure in the United States to improve the sharing, accessibility, and integration of water data and information. IoW technologies allow users to discover and access water data across organizations in a seamless way, creating a common point of access that harvests data from multiple sources. IoW technologies apply IoW Principles, which are built on the core idea that all water data produced for the public good should, by default, be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) for public use or authorized users. The Pinal County Water Hub prototype is the result of a collaborative effort of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy with water utility and community partners. Using a highly participatory model of collaboration, the outcome of this project is a data sharing and visualization platform that addresses critical water challenges in Pinal County, Arizona by improving and automating spatial and tabular data transfer, helping partners to better answer questions like: “How much growth do we have capacity to support?” and “Where will this growth occur in conjunction to water supplies and infrastructure?” CGS will present Pinal County prototype demonstrating a successful regional collaboration, which can be attributed to a unique private public partnership, aligning water delivery data with accurate built environment information, and modernizing water data systems (increase access to and reliability of water data), helping answer key questions about current and future growth.