SODA CLASS 003 - Water
Reliability, quality, and chemistry - kept in balance. Real outcomes, proven first, claimed once, and easy to verify.
Water
SODA-003 issues one-year water outcomes measured in water-years (wy) across four sub-classes: 003Q Water Quantity (availability/flows/storage), 003WQ Water Quality (pollutant load reduction), 003MC Marine Carbonate Chemistry (ocean alkalinity services), and 003G Green-water Soil Moisture (root-zone moisture). Ex-post issuance with verification and a full evidence bundle (LRPDS).
Targeted impact: Keep catchments, coasts and working lands within safe operating ranges for people and nature - measured, audited, comparable.
Why the SODA Standard matters here?
- Comparable units across diverse actions. Different water outcomes are translated into a single service unit (wy) for year-to-year tracking.
- No double counting; one claim per unit. Public, searchable claims prevent re-use.
- Verification before issuance. Independent checks and conservative estimates are mandatory.
Note: SODA-003 is not a water-rights instrument; it evidences outcomes and claims.
Sub-classes:
003Q - Water Quantity
- Outline: Verified improvements in availability, flows, or storage across a one-year period.
- Where it applies: On-farm retention, managed aquifer recharge, environmental flows delivery.
- Worked example: A farm cluster deploys retention basins that sustain baseflows through dry months; the verified
- service is recorded as wy under the applicable method.
003WQ - Water Quality
- Outline: Quantified reductions in pollutant loads reaching waterways (e.g., N, P, sediments), expressed in wy after method conversion.
- Where it applies: Wetlands, riparian buffers, treatment systems.
003MC - Marine Carbonate Chemistry
- Outline: Actions that measurably improve local carbonate chemistry (e.g., alkalinity addition) to counter acidification pressure, reported in wy (with alkalinity equivalents used in quantification).
- Where it applies: Blue-carbon and coastal protection projects with robust monitoring.
003G - Green-water Soil Moisture
- Outline: Verified maintenance/improvement of root-zone soil moisture over a year (critical for crop resilience and runoff reduction).
- Where it applies: Regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, groundcover restoration.
Claims guardrails: State the service, the place, the time window, and the amount. Link the claim to its SODA IDs and LRPDS so anyone can check the maths and monitoring.