Earth pulling Isaac Newton’s apple toward the ground taught gravity to humanity. Now gravity pulling satellites toward Earth is teaching Californians how little water we have — and helping businesses cope with the scarcity of a resource as crucial to the state’s economy as it is to humanity’s survival.
As the state’s water supply shrinks from too much consumption and not enough replenishment amid climate change and long-term drought, and extreme weather brings floods, companies are paying increased attention to water, and the risks to commerce — including regulation — that arise when supply can’t meet demand.
“Water is the new carbon,” says water-resources engineer Nick Silverman, chief scientist at Bay Area water-risk analysis firm Waterplan, which counts major companies including Facebook parent Meta of Menlo Park — which, like Google, has its headquarters at close to sea level near the San Francisco Bay — among its customers.
From 2000 to 2021, California and the southwestern U.S. have seen the driest 22-year period since at least 800 A.D., “which may be a harbinger of more global warming-fueled extreme megadrought in the future,” according to a December paper in the journal Nature co-written by former NASA senior water scientist and Waterplan adviser Jay Famiglietti. “Stress on groundwater resources under these drying conditions will likely increase in the coming decades, and will be exacerbated by the need to provide more water and produce more food for a growing population.” Recent torrential storms notwithstanding, almost half of long-parched California remained under severe drought as of Jan. 10, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Waterplan uses data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, a program known as GRACE. Variations in the relative positions of the program’s pair of satellites reflect gravity’s pull, and the amount of pull can be analyzed to provide information about where water, including snow and ice, lies on and under the earth. Waterplan, headquartered in San Francisco and launched in 2020, has analyzed every watershed on Earth.
Satellite data, supplemented with information from other sources including client companies, allows Waterplan to calculate a firm’s risks related to water supply, water quality, and flooding, along with hazards associated with regulation and corporate reputation.
The Bay Area News Group asked Silverman about Waterplan’s work. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What types of business are affected by water risk?
A: Every type of business. It’s more like, ‘Is it direct or indirect?’ Maybe it’s a supply chain kind of issue, where it’s not your water risk where you’re located but it’s that supply chain: Where do you get your products from? We use water in so many different ways, we use if for cooling in data centers, we use it for energy generation. And of course we use it in agriculture. I’m not aware of a major economic sector that shouldn’t be concerned. Any company has water risk that they should be concerned about.
Q: How does water risk affect a business?
A: If a facility does not have access to water, let’s say, that can be either their water runs out, or water quality decreases … it’s a financial risk. The water risk itself can be translated to financial risk through some fairly simple calculations which I think can hit home for a lot of corporations. You use 100 gallons to produce 100 units of such and such, you sell each unit for this amount, you can calculate how much a gallon of water is worth.
Q: How large a market does Waterplan see in California for its services?
A: The market in California is huge. California’s economy is hugely based on water. I don’t need to tell you how important agriculture is for the state… also all the data centers out there and technology centers. Fifty percent of the state uses groundwater as a water supply, and it’s difficult to track groundwater availability and changes. A third of California’s water supply comes from snowpack. Tracking the amount of water that’s way up in the mountains, oftentimes inaccessible, and also stored deeply underground, which is really hard to track … becomes really critical in terms of California understanding its water.
Q: What are the causes of water risk in California beyond consumption exceeding supply?
A: We can’t forget about water quality as aquifers deplete. Contaminants that are in those aquifers get more concentrated. You also get intrusion in a lot of places of water from the ocean. Saltwater is flowing into the groundwater.
Q: How do you assess water risk?
A: We define it as the combination of hazard exposure and vulnerability. Flooding is a really good example. What’s the probability of magnitude of a flood event? Is your facility located within a flood plain? (What is) the value of infrastructure that’s exposed? Do you have some sort of coping mechanisms if your facility gets flooded? We then break down hazard exposure and vulnerability into indicators that we can capture from hydrologic models or satellite imagery, and also facility-level information that our client provides.
Q: What else is important about Waterplan’s work?
A: California leads the way in water research and science but a lot of that sort of lives in academia or big institutions. There’s tremendous opportunity to connect this available science with the on-the-ground users of water, to make science accessible to the folks that need it to make informed decisions.
Name: Nick SilvermanTitle: Head of science at WaterplanAge: 44Education: PhD in regional hydroclimatology, University of Montana; master’s in engineering, University of Washington; Bachelor’s in physics and engineering, Washington and Lee UniversityFamily: Married 13 years; 8-year-old daughterBorn in: Gainesville, FloridaCity of residence: Missoula, Montana
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Five things about Nick Silverman:
1: My favorite thing to do is play in or on top of water: surfing, kayaking, stand-up paddle-boarding or just jumping into a mountain stream on a hot day.
2: I love to read all types of books, especially sci-fi.
3: I have become rather passionate about trying to hunt and harvest my own meat and fish. It has taught me invaluable lessons on land and wildlife conservation, food ethics, and humility.
4: I like to travel by foot, bike, or my pickup truck — planes not so much.
5: I view food in a very utilitarian way. I like to eat healthy things but my wife is the foodie.
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