Access to a clean water supply is a key issue facing many people around the world today. In the United States, the State of California’s water supply is especially critical to maintain because so much of the United States’ domestic produce and agriculture is grown in California. Furthermore, California also needs to ensure that its 39 million residents have access to water.
What They Needed
To ensure a sustainable, clean water supply, California’s government routinely conducts studies of water quality throughout the state. The state government hired us to help model the presence and transportation of mercury through the Yolo Bypass and the San Francisco Bay Delta. This area is so critical because the watershed supplies the heart of the state’s agriculture belt in the Central Valley. It also provides clean water to both the Sacramento and San Francisco Bay Areas.
The Solution
The project consisted of several components
- 3 Mathematical Models
- Mercury quantity and transport through the Yolo Bypass
- Mercury quantity and transport through the San Francisco Bay Delta
- Water flow rates through the Yolo Bypass.
- 11 Microsoft Access databases containing up to 24 million data points each
- A GIS Application
- A Model-Independent Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis Application
The End Result
We improved the connection between the four components listed above. That improvement boosted the efficiency and accuracy of both the model and scenario development, as well as the model runs. Because we used the output from one model as input for the other, ensuring its accuracy was very important. Indeed, incorrect output from one model wreaked havoc on the results of the other. As a result, we used Python to debug and develop a breakthrough solution to the issue.
By the time the project wrapped up, we had written 7 custom Python packages and over 30 scripts. The Python code improved process efficiencies by as much as 8,000%. As a result, the project finished by its scheduled completion date in August, 2020.