Plate V
Ecosystem: who holds California's water data
The "platform" AB 1755 called for is not one system. It is a stack: agency program databases at the bottom, two federated CKAN catalogs in the middle, and an independent nonprofit backbone on top. Here is the stack as it stands in 2026.
Law & policysets the mandate
AB 1755 (2016)Open and Transparent Water Data Act
SB 19 (2019)stream gage plan
Water Resilience Portfolio (2020)Action 22: modernize water data
Water Supply Strategy (2022)Pillar 4: forecasting & data
SB 72 (2025)Water Plan modernization
Partner agenciesproduce and steward data
DWRlead; operates platform
State Water Board
CDFW
Water Quality Monitoring Council
CNRA · GovOps · OPR · Delta Stewardship Councilsupporting partners
Program systemswhere data is born (examples)
CDEC · SGMA Portal · WUEdataDWR
CalWATRS (2025) · CEDEN · CIWQSState Water Board
BIOS · CNDDBCDFW
↓ published or harvested into ↓
Federated catalogsthe AB 1755 platform
data.cnra.ca.gov21,451 datasets · CNRA
data.ca.gov4,664 datasets · CDT / GovOps
Ocean Data Partners16,076 harvested records
Water Data Partners1,410 federal records
Backbone & communitycoordinates, doesn't govern
CA Water Data Consortiumnonprofit, 2020–; §12410(b)
Internet of Water CoalitionConsortium joined 2022
UC Berkeley · CCST · UC Wateruse cases, research
Water Data Challenges2018, 2019, 2026
Counts from the live CKAN API, 2026-10-02. Program systems are illustrative, not exhaustive.
What's actually in the CNRA catalog
Three quarters of data.cnra.ca.gov comes from one federated ocean-data harvest. The three AB 1755 state partners publish about 3,000 records directly between them, and the State Water Board publishes 61 there (most Water Board data lives on data.ca.gov).
Records by publishing organization, data.cnra.ca.gov, 2026-10-02. Data: cnra_dataset_counts.csv.
The backbone grew up
The Consortium spent $73k in its first fiscal year. By FY2025 it was spending $2.4M, funded almost entirely by contributions.
Annual expenses, fiscal years ending June. IRS Form 990 via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. The state's share of revenue is not broken out. Data: consortium_finances.csv.