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WEBINAR: Operational Value of Water Quality Intelligence in Agriculture

Oct 23, 2024 at 11:00 AM EST

Water Banking and Innovative Water Management in Drought-Plagued Agricultural Regions 

In a recent KETOS webinar, CEO Meena Sankaran was joined by Nick Gatti, Water Resources Manager, Atlas Water (a subsidiary of RRG). During the session, they discussed water quality monitoring for agriculture, specifically in the San Joaquin Valley in California.

The San Joaquin Valley in California is renowned for its impressive open-field agriculture operations. However, it is also an area that can see wide water availability fluctuations yearly. To maintain optimal operations, local farmers need to manage water supplies carefully, and one way to do that is via water banking, a service RRG offers. By banking and managing water supplies, farmers in the region can sustain long-term agricultural operations.

You can watch their entire conversation here:

What is Water Banking?

Water banking allows for storing, exchanging, and transferring water resources, typically to manage water supply during periods of scarcity. It operates like a financial bank, where water rights holders can “deposit” excess water in times of surplus and “withdraw” it during droughts or other times of need.

Water banking helps with:

  1. Drought Resilience: Water banking helps build a buffer against drought conditions by storing excess water during abundant periods.
  2. Efficient Water Use: The practice allows for redistributing water from surplus to deficit areas, ensuring effective use of water resources.
  3. Economic Benefits: Water banking can provide financial incentives to address conservation and efficient water use by enabling water rights trading.
  4. Agricultural Sustainability: Farmers in water-poor or water-stressed areas can rely on banked water to maintain crop productivity during droughts.
  5. Urban and Industrial Support: Cities and industries in more arid regions can use water banks to secure reliable water supplies while supporting economic development.

Water banks can be physical in nature (where water is stored in reservoirs or underground aquifers). They can also involve virtual exchanges, where water rights are traded without physical storage. Government entities, water districts, or private organizations often manage these systems to optimize water allocation and improve water security. In the San Joaquin Valley, water banking is just one way farmers can ensure enough water for their crops – even during droughts.

Water Quality Monitoring for Water Banking Operations

By combining strategic storage and water distribution with robust water quality monitoring, water banking can serve as a unique option for addressing water scarcity challenges in a sustainable and safe manner. With more visibility into what banked water wells are producing, water operators in this industry can make decisions around distribution and blending (of, for example, surface water and groundwater).

Importantly, leveraging water quality monitoring in physical water banking scenarios ensures:

  • Human Health: If water is banked for drinking purposes, it must meet the most stringent water quality standards to ensure safety for human consumption.
  • Contamination Prevention: Storing water in underground aquifers or reservoirs has the potential to introduce contaminants such as nitrates, heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, etc.), or other environmental factors (pH, salinity, etc.), making regular testing crucial.
  • Ecosystem Health: Contaminated water released back into natural systems can harm aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Water banking operations must meet local, state, and federal water quality regulations to avoid legal and environmental repercussions.
  • Maximal Potential: Banked water is often for multiple uses, such as irrigation, industrial processes, or potable supply. Poor water quality can limit its applications and reduce its value.
  • Public Confidence: Transparent water quality monitoring builds trust among stakeholders (farmers, municipalities, and consumers), ensuring the long-term success of water banking programs.

Water Quality and Water Quantity: Why Water Monitoring is Critical

Water quantity and water quality intersect in water banking operations. Managing one aspect often directly impacts the other, and striking a balance between the two is critical for the success and sustainability of water banking systems. 

Water quality and quantity work together in the following ways:

Storage and Contamination Risks

Physical water banking (like for agricultural applications) involves storing large volumes of water in reservoirs or aquifers. Maximizing storage capacity is often a priority to meet future demands. However, stored water can interact with sediments, minerals, or contaminants in the storage medium, potentially degrading its quality. For instance, aquifer storage might lead to contamination from naturally occurring substances like arsenic or human-induced pollutants like nitrates.

Evaporation and Concentration of Contaminants

Storage of surface water in open reservoirs is prone to evaporation, reducing the volume of stored water over time. In addition, as water evaporates, dissolved contaminants such as salts or metals can become more concentrated, potentially rendering the remaining water unsuitable for specific uses, like drinking water or irrigation.

Recharge and Ground Water Interaction

Recharging aquifers with water from water banking programs is a common practice to enhance groundwater availability. While ideal for an aquifer’s long-term sustainability, if the recharged water is of poor quality, it can degrade the overall quality of the aquifer, making it difficult or expensive to treat water withdrawn in the future.

Trade-offs Between Supply and Treatment

In areas facing water scarcity, like the agricultural-rich areas of the San Joaquin Valley, increasing the available supply through water banking is a key goal. However, if water quality is poor, additional treatment will be required before use, which can diminish the quantity of usable water due to treatment losses and increased costs.

Usage and Water Quality Requirements

Different end uses (e.g., agriculture versus municipal supply versus industrial processes) require varying quantities of water. Each use also has specific water quality standards. For example, water for drinking must meet stricter quality criteria than water for irrigation. As a result, the same volume of water might not be suitable for all purposes, depending on its quality.

Monitoring and Management Costs

Managing large quantities of banked water requires infrastructure for storage and distribution. Monitoring water quality may add a layer of complexity and/or cost. Poor water quality might result in additional investments in treatment or remediation, reducing the cost-effectiveness of extensive water storage.

KETOS for Water Banking Operations

Managing water quantity and quality is crucial to ensure that stored water remains a reliable resource in the long-term. Integrated approaches, such as combining rigorous water quality testing with quantity monitoring alongside advanced treatment technologies can help address the interplay between these factors, ensuring that water banking systems are both efficient and sustainable.

KETOS is uniquely positioned to help water banking operations that serve municipal and agricultural applications thanks to its focus on automation and analysis. KETOS devices are modular and can be strategically placed across water banking operations (influent, effluent, groundwater resources, etc.). Water quality can be tested across 35+ parameters, including for dissolved solids, heavy metals (like lead, copper, mercury, and arsenic), nutrients, and other environmental factors.

With testing automated and customized to sample at predetermined intervals, water bankers can monitor for and maintain water quality over time. If, for example, water evaporation changes the composition of water quality over time, water operators can spot trends and adjust accordingly to protect quality and ensure banked water maintains composition before delivery to customers. This can help protect crops in agricultural applications and human health in municipal ones.

Moreover, at a glance, water banking organizations can gauge if water needs treatment or if the level of quality is sufficiently potable for delivery to various clients. Over time, operators can note trends for faster remediation times and lower overall remediation costs.

Adopting Out-of-the-Box Technologies to Protect Agriculture

Adopting new technologies can be exciting – and surprisingly accessible – for businesses of all kinds, including open-field agriculture. One of the most notable changes between traditional adoption and modern technological applications is that the farmer or operator doesn’t have to purchase expensive equipment and invest upfront. With solutions like KETOS, the monitoring devices come at a $0-CAPEX, with organizations paying a low monthly fee while, at the same time, taking advantage of the latest water quality monitoring equipment and technology.

This ensures that agricultural operations are never left behind and always have access to the latest state-of-the-art monitoring capabilities. They can change parameters and thresholds to meet their needs and learn more about water quality over time based on historical data and trends.

Other technologies, including satellite data, precision agricultural practices, crop data, intelligent water management systems, and, of course, AI and machine learning, are giving water bankers, farms, and farmers the insights they need to manage water efficiently over the short and long-term for successful crops, increased yield, and future viability.

Water Banking: A Viable Source of Long-Term Water Management

As water scarcity exacerbated by climate change begins to affect communities and agricultural operations, it’s important to find ways to protect existing local resources. Water banking may be one of many solutions that, used with other existing technologies, will help with broader water management goals. By banking water responsibly, we can maintain agricultural operations.

Technology is another important factor that can help maximize water banking’s potential. AI and automation are useful in understanding water quality and water trends. Being able to pull, track, and parse data in real-time and over time will be increasingly important in the coming years, and KETOS is excited to be at the forefront of the digital transformation currently unfolding in the open-field agriculture industry.

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