A blockchain based platform for natural resource management and governance.

Project Idea

Due to increasing regulatory, climate and market pressures, stakeholders are beginning to explore ways in which they can mitigate uncertainty associated with their water supply. Current avenues for mitigation are limited due to the value of groundwater being unknown, legal ambiguity, the availability and affordability of surface water deliveries and more.

​

For decades, California’s groundwater sustainability problem has been characterized by declining groundwater levels, land subsidence, saltwater intrusion and extreme drought. In 2014, the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requiring 127 groundwater basins to halt overdraft and return to balanced levels of pumping.

​

What is needed is a new avenue for uncertainty mitigation: a governance and trading platform enacted on a permissioned blockchain to act as a trusted third party between stakeholders.

Our Investigation

Our investigation focused on two things: 

​

(1)

Understanding the water sustainability problems that exist in the Western US.

As a part of the Penn Center for Innovation I-CORPs program Phone and in-person interviews were conducted with over 20 individuals in an attempt to gain insight into the problem of GW sustainability, the viability of water markets and digitized water rights on the blockchain as a solution.

​

(2)

Examining the feasibility of tokenizing water rights with Substrate to help solve the sustainability crisis.

After conducting an extensive evaluation of existing models for the implementation and operation of water markets around the world, we aim at establishing a fair system of digitized water rights by using NFTs as crypto forward assets. Checkout our recent submission to Hackusama.

Team