Abstract
The current paradigm of water management in California has shifted from increasing storage capacity by damming rivers and creating lakes for fresh water storage to increasing water usage efficiency and water use management, due to a souring of public sentiment and a withdrawal of federal dollars and programs that spurred the expansion of the hydraulic era. Facing limited financial and freshwater resources and an increasing population and demand for freshwater resources in California, water managers must make wise choices on which policies to implement. Using data collected from cities, local agencies, utility companies, published industry standards and/or private companies within Sonoma county, we will explore indoor vs outdoor water use management and efficiency measures in terms of implementation cost in residential areas, in order to provide concrete data and analysis to local agencies which will inform the decision-making process when choosing between implementing indoor vs outdoor efficiency and associated management policies for residents.
Introduction
California’s Mediterranean climate includes extended periods of dry weather punctuated violently during some winters by atmospheric river events that replenish the snowpack and natural reservoirs, recharge groundwater basins, fill aqueducts and bring walls of flood water that alter riverbed structure, cresting and overtopping riverbanks sometimes in a matter of hours. Throughout its history, California has enacted water-related policies that have failed to meet or address one or more of the primary tenants of modern water management – flood management, riparian ecosystem sustainability, water management and water quality. These decisions have left California short of water and in need of conservation and efficiency policies to manage our limited water supply and increasing demand.
Methods
We developed our research question by observing the world around us. We saw that water conservation was an important issue that affected people on a daily basis without their full knowledge. We decided to research ways individuals and households could work to conserve water in their day to day lives. In order to keep the task manageable we decided to focus on a single community near to us. We chose the city of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County. The city had many efforts in place to conserve water and had plentiful information on the city’s demographics and statistics. On the Sonma Water website we found different programs such as their interview series that help educate the public on water use and extensive records about water use in the area. We also used the directory provided to find other useful sites that pertained to specific communities within Sonoma. One of these sites was the city of Santa Rosa Water Services site. This site detailed the cost of water for the city and how the community was charged for it. By using this site we collected numerical data on the water use and cost for the city of Santa Rosa and were able to compare it to data collected from the EPA website and determine the average water cost and amount of water used for individuals in the city. These facts made the city of Santa Rosa the perfect place to choose as our community of focus for our research paper.
We investigated our selected topic through multiple different channels that provided us with many different resources that our paper utilized. We used Google Scholar which is a program that collects research papers and articles and provides a simple search engine for locating them. When we used Google Scholar, we found many different papers on the science of conservation and water use in California. The articles all spoke about the amount of water being wasted and the effects it had on the environment. The words we used to research our topic in this search engine all involved “conservation” and “water”. We also used the UC Davis database for parts of our data collection. The database had many different articles that focused on the science behind conservation, but not on the actual steps people could take to conserve water. We gathered statistics on water use and conservation tactics from these pages. We utilized the article “”Saving Water: A Causal Model of Household Conservation. Sociological Perspectives”” by Hamilton L.C. to determine how individual households could save water and the technologies being developed that support water efficiency and conservation. We also used government websites and databases to gather household averages and research the community our paper would be focusing on. The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency sites included everything from pricing averages to installation time requirements that we utilized in our analysis. The websites had the majority of the information needed to complete the cost-benefit analysis of our paper.
We collected rough data from all of these sources and then compiled them into a simple outline to help develop our paper. The data needed to be interpreted and computed in order to get the final numbers for our research paper. To complete these calculations we used Google Sheets and a simple calculator to determine total costs and averages for the proposed water conservation methods.
Results
We have conducted research and investigated the most efficient ways to conserve water in the city of Santa Rosa. By looking at the water use statistics for the county of Sonoma we can determine the best methods of conserving water.
We began by investigating the areas of the home that utilize the most water. According to the City of Santa Rosa it costs an average of $102.00 a month to water a 3000 square foot(average size) lawn in California(City of Santa Rosa, 2021). This means the cost to water your annually would be about $1224.00. Watering an average sized lawn of 3000 square feet also uses 7476 gallons of water per month(Burke, 2018). This means that annually a lawn uses 89712 gallons of water. One alternative to a lawn is xeriscaping. It is estimated to cost about $5.50 per square foot to convert existing lawns to the new landscape(Dickinson, 2020). This means to convert a 3000 square foot lawn would cost $16500. Xeriscaping is estimated to reduce water use between 50 to 70%(Stanley, 2021). Using these statistics, switching to xeriscaping would save about 35839.8 gallons of water a year annually. The city of Navato claimed that switching to Xeriscaping saved as much as 120 gallons of water a day(Stanley, 2021). The city of Santa Rosa promotes this landscaping style by offering a $0.75 cash rebate per square foot of lawn converted to xeriscape(City of Santa Rosa Water 2021). This brings the cost down from $16500 to $14,250 for the average lawn after rebates.
Water efficiency was the next method we investigated for conserving water in Santa Rosa. According to the Home Depot website switching to low flow toilets and water efficient showerheads costs an average of $550 for purchase and installation(Home Depot, 2021). The EPA estimates that low flow toilets can save homeowners over $110 per year and they save about 25 gallons of water per day or 9125 gallons annually(EPA, 2021). A 1.5 gpm low flow showerhead saves about 2,100 gallons of water per year compared to a 2.5 gpm shower head at a cost of about $50. Switching to a water efficient washing machine is another way to conserve water in the home. The average residential washing machine uses about 41 gallons of water per load and the average family completes about 300 loads of laundry a year according to the EPA and the United States National Parks Service(US Department of the Interior, 2021). This means that the average washing machine uses about 12300 gallons of water annually. The U.S. Department of Energy has set new requirements on the efficiency for washing machines so by using a newer certified washing machine you could save 70% more water than by using a regular machine according to the U.S. Department of Energy(U.S. Department of the Interior, 2020). This means that by switching to a water efficient machine which can cost anywhere from $400-$2000 you could save 8610 gallons of water annually.
We can also limit water use by simply using less water and reducing our waste through our daily practices. By taking showers that are shorter we can save tremendous amounts of water. According to the EPA, every minute a shower uses 2 gallons of water meaning that the average shower takes about 16 gallons of water(WaterSense, 2020). If you shower daily, but shower for half the time you could save 2880 gallons of water annually using a normal shower head with no financial cost. We can save water in smaller ways also by just altering our habits. By turning off the facets while brushing our teeth we can save water also. The EPA states that leaving the water running while brushing your teeth wastes an average of four gallons. This means that 8 gallons of water is wasted everyday or 2920 gallons annually by people not turning off their faucets while brushing their teeth(WaterSense, 2020).
In conclusion, by utilizing the water conservation methods detailed above individuals can save upwards of 60,000 gallons of water annually. The cost for the average family within Santa Rosa would be about $15,800 to completely transition to a water efficient home and system. This does not factor in the cost of water which according to Santa Rosa County costs $6.79* per 1,000 gallons used. This means that annually using these water conservation methods individuals would save $407.40 per year on water alone. Using these numbers we can calculate that it would take about 38.82 years for the savings accumulated to completely cover the cost of transitioning to a household water conservation system.
Analysis
The data collected suggests two alternatives which can result in urban water demand reduction; xeriscaping, and implementation of best practices and appliance replacement.
Xeriscaping:
Xeriscaping provides by far the greatest total reduction in water usage, delivering a savings of 35,839 gallons per year if the average lawn is replaced by drought-tolerant plantings. If the lawn is replaced with colored rocks or other non-living landscaping, it will reduce related water use to zero and further increase savings. Xeriscaping is also, however, the most controversial and financially taxing option. Without full public buy-in, it is also impractical and it is unreasonable to assume a successful conservation result. There are few levers a city or water management agency can pull to effectively coerce or convince unwilling residents ro remove their lawns. A city council potentially could implement a city ordinance, banning future lawn planting and current outdoor lawn watering; however, it would be a very unwieldy ordinance, difficult to enforce, and would likely result in the Council losing their seats in the next cycle.
Financially, this mode of conservation is also problematic. Every dollar spent on xeriscaping is a dollar that can’t be spent on another conservation goal or methodology. The cost of a complete xeriscape is roughly $15.000, which results in a calculation that every dollar spent saves 2.39 gallons of water. Not only is the ratio of gallons saved to dollars spent low, given the retail price of a gallon of water, but it also requires significant up-front capital investment which will generate a pay-back over many years. The return on investment is low. In order for this method, which is the most environmentally favorable alternative to me, because it results in large-scale water savings immediately rather than small incremental savings over time.
For my preferred option to be adopted and implemented, county or local governments will likely need to provide the bulk of the cost of xeriscaping either in grants or through loans that can be paid back over the lifetime of the savings. There are very few agencies that have the resources to fund these capital-intensive incentive options.
Appliance Replacement/Best Practices
The second alternative is appliance replacement and best practices management. Environmentally, this option conserves far less total water than xeriscaping, but every dollar spent in this category conserves 4.305 gallons of water. The total upfront capital investment is both much smaller and more manageable for governmental financing residents or for residents in a wider array of income brackets. The total cost of replacement can also be phased in, because unlike a lawn replacement/xeriscaping, appliances can be replaced over time, spreading out the initial financial pain without necessarily requiring government grants or loans. This less intrusive and less intense approach, especially when coupled together with water education becomes even more effective (in gallons saved) and more efficient (in terms of dollars spent).
Advocacy and education for more mindful water use is more nebulous in terms of how much money needs to be spent or how much education is enough to generate significant or maximum water use reductions. However, the information provided consumers and the lessons learned will extend throughout the life of those educated, and will be multiplied when they teach others (family members or children, for example). This is contrasted with investments in appliances, for example, that can wear down and become inefficient as they reach their maximum lifespans, or xeriscaping that can be replaced when a property changes ownership.
In conclusion, California’s mediteranian climate requires city planners and water managers to constantly push urban and rural water users to be more efficient in their consumption and use of fresh water as well as to become water-conscious and to reduce their daily footprint in regards to their interaction with fresh water. In terms of total gallons conserved, xeriscaping urban lawns provides the most potential savings for a county water budget. However, it is also the most costly to implement and mandates from county or local officials forcing private citizens to convert will be met with resistance. Further, unless the xeriscaped area is replaced with non-living alternatives, every dollar spent to convert saves 2.39 gallons of water (5.99 gallons of water with non living), while appliance replacement and implementation of best practices saves 4.305 gallons of water per dollar spent. In is therefore our conclusion that the best policy alternative to implement is providing modest water rebates to residents who replace outdated appliances with high-efficiency models and who reduce their overall water consumption through mindful interactions with their water footprint. This alternative will be the cheapest to implement, and receive the greatest level of public support.