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Water division highlights new data dashboard and long-range planning metrics
Summary
Water division staff recognized an employee and described a new real-time water data dashboard that integrates multiple sources and supports supply, demand and aquifer planning; staff said the tool will inform long-range water resource scenarios to be presented later this year.
The City of Santa Fe Public Works and Utilities Committee heard staff praise for a new internal water data dashboard and a preview of how the tool will feed long-range water-resource planning.
Interim Water Division Director Jonathan Montoya and colleagues recognized Steve Schultz, a water division employee who joined the division in October 2021, for developing a dashboard that aggregates demand, supply and water-rights data from multiple sources. Montoya said the dashboard “takes the human error out of it” by consolidating meter reads, USGS data, Bureau of Reclamation inputs and other sources into one platform that updates nightly.
Montoya and another staff member described several operational benefits: the dashboard allows staff to check real-time demand and supply comparisons during weekly planning meetings with county, utility and local partners; it helps staff ask specific questions and make timely decisions; and it will demonstrate locations of diversions and source contributions (Buckman, groundwater, Canyon Road, Santa Fe River). Staff said they plan to present the dashboard to the committee later this year.
Staff also credited Schultz’s geohydrology expertise in work to better utilize existing well fields. The division said it has the capacity in its wells to provide substantial supply if surface treatment plants are offline and that recent operational changes — rotating wells in and out of production — are yielding new data on aquifer behavior. Staff said the extra data will support conceptual modeling and strategies to use wells at higher capacity when needed.
Montoya described longer-range planning work that will use the dashboard to run “what if” scenarios for supply and demand. Staff said they are developing four metrics to evaluate future strategies: reliability (will water be available when needed), sustainability (long-term aquifer health), river flow (how much water remains in Upper and Lower River reaches) and community green-space concerns such as pollinators and urban shade.
No formal action was taken; staff said they expect to return with presentations on the dashboard and supply planning later in the year.
