Tag: water conservation

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Water Conservation in the Home Orchard

Practicing water conservation isn’t just for the ornamental landscaper; commercial as well as home orchards can also be water wise and water efficient.

Ways to Conserve Water in Orchards

  • Perform a distribution uniformity test of your irrigation system
  • A distribution uniformity between 90-100% is considered a uniform system; this ensures that plants are watered evenly and more efficiently
  • This also helps avoid excess water application and runoff
  • Perform regular maintenance
  • Check for line breaks
  • Check for plugged emitters
  • Clean filters
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water conservation – table of contents

Basic Water Facts

Why Conserve Water?
Misconceptions about Water Conserving Landscapes
What is a Drought?
What is Water Conservation?
The Water Cycle (students K-6)

Landscape Sustainability

Diversity Encourages Landscape Sustainability
Water Conservation in the Landscape
Drought Impacts on Landscape Plant Survival
Green Roofs as Water Wise Landscapes
Types of Green Roofs
Water-Wise Stewards
Climate Impacts on Water Conservation

What is a Water Conserving Landscape?

Cultural Expectations About Water Conserving Landscapes
Misconceptions about Water Conserving Landscapes
Seven Principles of Water-Wise Landscaping:

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What is Water Conservation?

Quick Answer:

Water conservation is the reduction in use of water through a variety of methods. Most households waste water through inefficient plumbing, leaks, clothes washing machines, and over watering the landscape.

It is estimated that about 30% of total household water use is outdoors. Of that 30%, 40 to 70% is used to irrigate the landscape; a staggering 9 billion gallons of water used per day.                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

 

 

Conserving water will:

  • Reduce pollution of water bodies and aquifers
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Parking Strips: Water Conserving or Weed Magnet?

Parking strips can be either water conserving or weed magnets. Parking strips are often “out of sight, out of  mind” for many homeowners, especially in older neighborhoods without pressurized irrigation systems and can quickly become weed magnets.

Dragging a hose across the sidewalk is inconvenient and possibly dangerous to pedestrians.

One way to address this issue is to create a water conserving park strip. A water conserving parking strip is simply a parking strip that uses less water than …

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What is a Drought?

 

Water wise landscape.

Quick Answer:

Droughts are naturally occurring events that result from less than normal precipitation over short or extended periods of time.

The effects of drought can affect normal human activities and the environment. Drought is a normal part of climate patterns and occurs virtually everywhere.

Drought is not detrimental in and of itself. Problems with drought arise when water use exceeds water supply.

Types of Drought

  • Meteorological: significant departure of precipitation below normal values
  • Agricultural: soil moisture is not
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Why Conserve Water?

Conserving Water:

Conserving water is fast becoming a hot topic across the nation. Water is one of our most precious natural resources. Although the Earth’s surface is 70% water, only 2.5% is fresh water. The amount of fresh water available for human use and consumption, however, is less than 1% of the fresh water.

Drought and the potential impacts of climate change only adds to the uncertainty surrounding water availability.

There are many ways to conserve water around the home …

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Water Conservation in the Landscape

Drought cycles coupled with increasing urban population growth is putting pressure on water supplies in many areas throughout the US prompting calls for increasing water conservation in the landscape.

Traditional landscape practices tend to promote inefficient water use. A shift in thinking is necessary in order to promote water conservation in the home landscape.

Sources of Water Waste in the Home Landscape

    • Leaking outdoor faucets and irrigation pipes
    • Car washing
    • Hosing down driveways and sidewalks
    • Evaporation from bare soils
    • Inefficient
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