{"id":493102,"date":"2022-02-24T07:12:23","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T15:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=493102"},"modified":"2022-04-29T00:07:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T07:07:31","slug":"watching-california-drought","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/watching-california-drought","title":{"rendered":"With an Eye on Every Field in California, Land IQ Watches Water Use"},"author":6162,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14832],"tags":[26512,332422,12662,279132],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478372],"esri_blog_department":[478202],"class_list":["post-493102","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water-resources","tag-climate-change","tag-drought","tag-remote-sensing","tag-water","esri-blog-category-water","esri_blog_department-infrastructure"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Land IQ measures and monitors water use in key California agricultural counties that are suffering from ongoing drought.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Land IQ measures and monitors water use in key California agricultural counties that are suffering from ongoing drought and regulatory pumping restrictions.\r\n\r\n<strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Regulators and growers are seeking accurate data about water use to understand how to manage the scarce resource.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>By measuring evapotranspiration based on weather conditions and crop type, location, and age, Land IQ measures water use field by field .<\/li>\r\n \t<li>The California company affirms its calculations with on-the-ground measurements.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"When it comes to agriculture in California\u2014where the US draws more than a third of its vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts\u2014one company keeps an eye on water usage to ensure the resource remains sustainable.\r\n\r\nFor years, Land IQ has documented more than 420,000 individual fields of crops statewide via remote sensors, satellite imagery, and in-person verifications spanning more than 15,000 miles annually. In three California counties critical to the state's agricultural production, the company also tracks how much water each field is using. The data, made visible on maps via a geographic information system (GIS), gets reported to local water resource managers. These smart maps support officials monitoring the state\u2019s water supply and farmers making decisions that must balance economics with protecting natural resources.\r\n\r\nIn the early days, some growers may have been wary of the tech-enabled surveillance of their water use. Now, with the state in a prolonged drought, Land IQ\u2019s co-owner Joel Kimmelshue said his firm\u00a0rarely encounters pushback. Growers want reliable, accurate, and defensible information too, since their livelihoods depend on a steady supply of water, he said. The emphasis is on facts. Land IQ doesn\u2019t advocate for one group over another, only the science.\r\n\r\n\u201cFarmers are very adaptable. Very wise. And they\u2019ve had to become that way because they\u2019ve had to adapt to change,\u201d said Kimmelshue, who is also the firm\u2019s principal soil and agricultural scientist.\r\n<h3><strong>High Stakes to Save Water<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nKimmelshue predicts dramatic changes to landscapes in the years to come as many growers opt to let land go fallow rather than irrigate it. Water markets are also emerging with investors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/news\/local\/arizona-environment\/2021\/11\/25\/investors-buying-up-arizona-farmland-valuable-water-rights\/8655703002\/\">buying land simply to sell the water rights<\/a> to developers elsewhere in need of the resource.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe drought affects everybody, but it affects some people more than others,\u201d he said. \"In some areas, a landowner\u00a0might have an unquestionably\u00a0secure water right. In others, a grower might be\u00a0told to go from using three-acre feet of water to less than an acre foot, a stark reduction.\""},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[493132,493142,493172,493192]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"There\u2019s a domino effect, too. A grower told to use less water often grows fewer crops, if any at all. That means less crops making their way to stores and restaurants, resulting in higher prices.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t think people fully understand the magnitude of the drought and its effect on food security,\u201d said Mica Heilmann, co-owner and principal agricultural and spatial scientist with Land IQ.\r\n<h3><strong>Watching Water Use<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nCalifornia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/sgma.water.ca.gov\/webgis\/?appid=SGMADataViewer#currentconditions\">Sustainable Groundwater Management Act<\/a> of 2014 required the formation of\u00a0a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterboards.ca.gov\/waterboards_map.html\">network of regional groundwater sustainability agencies\u00a0<\/a>across the state to manage the scarce water supply. Each area must show\u00a0that groundwater isn\u2019t being overdrafted. The California Department of Water Resources reviews plans developed at the local level that, once approved, dictate who gets to pump, how much, and where, using maps and data from Land IQ to inform those important decisions.\r\n\r\nIt isn\u2019t as easy as simply noting how much water has been pumped. Much of what\u2019s pumped out seeps back underground. By measuring evapotranspiration\u2014the amount of water that leaves plants and the soil\u00a0for the atmosphere\u2014Land IQ scientists can determine water use field by field\u00a0<span class=\"normaltextrun\">within a slim margin of error, plus-or-minus 5-7 percent.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"normaltextrun\">That\u2019s <\/span><span class=\"normaltextrun\">because crops each take in and emit a certain amount of water depending on their type and maturity as well as climate conditions. The levels of evapotranspiration are physically measured by Land IQ on the ground using a network of nearly 100 weather stations.<\/span>\r\n\r\nIf Land IQ is looking at an alfalfa field, for example, and taps one of the hundreds of nearby stations for data, its analysts can determine how much water is being used at that specific location.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have to have those high accuracies,\u201d said Kimmelshue. \u201cIf you can save five\u00a0percent of water over 100,000 acres, we\u2019re talking about millions of dollars of value each year.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[499142,499152,499162]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Because the stakes are so high, Land IQ\u00a0does extensive ground truthing. Its crop scientists drive more than 15,000 miles across the state each year to calibrate and independently validate results for mapping crops statewide. The work involves affirming, for example, that an area of land that sensors indicated was a field of strawberries is in fact strawberries and not lettuce. The team uses a location-aware survey app powered by GIS on tablets, pinpointing that yes, those are indeed cherries on the left and alfalfa on the right, as they log every crop they drive past\u2014more than 12 percent of the total number of fields in the state.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe days of agricultural land use anonymity, or any land use anonymity, are over,\u201d Kimmelshue said.\r\n<h3><strong>Going Where the Need Exists<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nNASA has also\u00a0gotten into the evapotranspiration business, <a href=\"https:\/\/openetdata.org\/\">launching OpenET<\/a> to track water use in 17 western states. But Land IQ doesn\u2019t see encroachment on what they do best:\u00a0<span class=\"normaltextrun\">extensive in-person verification and focusing in detail on three key agricultural counties in California, ground zero for the water crisis.<\/span><span class=\"eop\">\u00a0It\u2019s also where many of the country\u2019s almonds, apricots, dates, figs, kiwi fruit, nectarines, olives, pistachios, prunes, and walnuts are grown and much of the nation\u2019s avocados, grapes, lemons, melons, peaches, plums, and strawberries. Only Florida produces more oranges.<\/span>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[493182,493152,493162]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Kimmelshue and Heilmann said they saw a need for scientific support in agricultural water use when they started Land IQ in 2007. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/imagery-remote-sensing\/overview\">Remote sensing<\/a> and geospatial technology have been at the heart of what they\u2019ve done, from the beginning. The California Almond Board has been a customer for 12 years and Land IQ\u2019s GIS-powered maps show the shifting almond crop over time. The California Department of Water Resources also hired the company to map\u00a0every field across the state, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/data.cnra.ca.gov\/dataset\/statewide-crop-mapping\">data available publicly online<\/a>.\r\n\r\nLand IQ\u2019s owners expect agricultural water use to remain a focus for them going forward, although they\u2019re acutely aware of circumstances that would require them to shift their attention, just like they did several years ago with drought conditions worsening.\r\n\r\nEven before the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act stood up strict new regulations and drought declarations were made, the company's leaders had already decided to take a more empirical approach to its water-use data gathering. They saw the need for even greater accuracy. Peoples\u2019 livelihoods were, and still are, on the line. That\u2019s when they incorporated more remote sensing into their approach,\u00a0bridging spatial sciences and land-based sciences.\r\n\r\nJust like growers, \u201cwe just have to be nimble,\u201d Kimmelshue said.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/water-resources\/overview\">water resource managers use GIS to monitor water quality and availability<\/a>."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>With an Eye on Every Field in California, Land IQ Watches Water Use<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The scientists at Land IQ built a California water use monitoring practice that applies expertise in agronomy, remote sensing, and GIS.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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