Theme: 3. Sustainability

Topic Area: 3b. Water and Air Quality Technologies

Background/Objectives:

The global hydrologic cycle is changing significantly due to rising global temperatures. As a result, 90% of climate change impacts are experienced through water-related events such as storms, drought, and flooding, all of which are increasing in frequency and intensity. As the hydrologic cycle continues to change, extreme water-related events (including long-term changes to water quality and quantity) will be the biggest risk to assets, supply chains, operational continuity, and economic viability. Businesses, government entities, and financial institutions must better understand current and future water quality and quantity risk to assets, operations, and supply chain or watershed partners to make critical, well-informed decisions today for a water resilient future tomorrow.

Approach/Activities:

True Elements built an extensible Water Intelligence platform through a unique combination of state-of-the-art technology, scientific, and artificial intelligence capabilities to translate water’s complex, multi-dimensional interrelationships into clearly understandable visualizations and scores for reliable analysis and forecasting to support informed decision-making. The platform pulls water data from many layers of climate, earth, and socio-economic systems from public and private databases (global, national, regional, local, and hyper-local). Data are curated, normalized, time-stamped, and geocoded within True Elements’ data engines. Aggregation and computational functions are supported by digital mesh, a low-code instantiation of a system of data-defined, watershed-level digital twins that simulate the flow of water vertically (from the atmosphere to the aquifer) and horizontally from point-to-point via the hydrologic (overland sheet flow) and hydrographic (stream and riverine flow) systems defined by topology, land use, infrastructure, and geology, etc.

Results/Lessons Learned:

True Elements’ Water Intelligence platform supports workflow at scale to report past, present, and future climate conditions related to water quality and quantity stresses from coastal regions associated with sea level rise considering the rise in mean sea level, the impact of astronomically driven tidal patterns, and potential storm surge events; riverine regions associated with increasing frequency and intensity and changing durations of both excess rainfall and/or drought events; and all regions associated with the availability and viability of groundwater systems as rainfall-driven recharge patterns change and demand for reliable, high-quality drinking, industrial and agricultural availability increase. The ability to contextualize climate change impacts allows decision makers to conduct risk analysis specific to their unique concerns, identify previously unseen opportunities, and support long-term water resiliency planning.

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David Bankston