openwell

OpenWell is an open‑source software platform focused on the collection, analysis and visualization of groundwater and aquifer data. The project was initiated in 2016 by a consortium of hydrologists and software engineers, with the goal of standardizing well logging information and facilitating data sharing among researchers, government agencies and private stakeholders. The core of the platform is a relational database schema that conforms to the International Groundwater Resources Information System (IGRIS) standards, allowing users to import well logs, pumping tests, water quality reports and geospatial metadata from a variety of proprietary and legacy formats.

The OpenWell desktop client and a web‑based portal provide query and mapping tools, as well as reporting functions that can export data in widely used formats such as CSV, JSON, GeoJSON and shapefiles. It also offers a set of Python and R libraries that enable programmatic access to the data, making it possible to integrate groundwater analyses into existing scientific workflows. OpenWell is maintained by a global volunteer community and distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, which encourages collaborative development and commercial deployment without licensing fees.

The platform has been adopted by several national water authorities and research institutions to improve the transparency and accessibility of groundwater datasets, supporting evidence‑based water management, policy development and compliance with international reporting obligations. Its modular design allows for future extensions such as integration with remote sensing products, machine‑learning based predictive models and real‑time monitoring networks.