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The Alameda County Water District (ACWD) serves the cities of Fremont, Newark andUnion City, California. Commercial, Industrial and Institutional (CII) customerscomprise 30% of ACWD customer base. Within the CII customer class, 52% have oneor more dedicated landscape meters. This paper describes the Dedicated LandscapePartnership (DLP), ACWD's premier CII large landscape survey program, created tomeet the best management practices (BMP) goals for BMP 5 and 9 of the CaliforniaUrban Water Conservation Council's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The DLPis a three phase program designed to: create water efficiency awareness in largelandscape water use in the CII sector by means of water budget reports; programparticipant recognition for efficient landscape water use; and, offer detailed irrigationsystem audits and create financial incentives to upgrade irrigation systems for gross over-users.Phase I of the DLP began performing landscape site measurements in 1999 in a cost-effectivemanner through the use of part-time intern staff. Actual consumption obtainedfrom the District's customer database was compared to site-specific turf and non-turflandscape water requirements based on measured landscape areas, calculated using localclimate conditions downloaded from the California Irrigation Management InformationSystem (CIMIS). By tracking landscape water use and creating a historical water budgetdatabase, ACWD has been able to implement Phase II of the program in May 2002.Phase II recognizes those DLP participants, and associated landscape contractors, whoselandscape water use per calendar year remains within budget. Certificates of Recognitionas Water Conservation Businesses of the Year are mailed to qualifying participants, alongwith their landscape contractors. These recipients are also printed in the local newspaperone Sunday in May, during Water Awareness Month.A pilot program to offer irrigation audits began during the summer of 2002, inpreparation for launching Phase III of the DLP in 2003. Beginning in 2003, gross over-userswithin the DLP are being targeted for detailed irrigation surveys, as well todetermine their potential for inclusion in a regional evapotranspiration (ET) controllergrant program. This regional grant, awarded by the Department of Water Resources(DWR), will be funded through June 2005. Phase III will also include a pilot GeographicInformation System (GIS) segment to determine the effectiveness of digitally calculating landscape square-footage in creating water budget reports. The cost-effectiveness ofincorporating remote sensing imaging and software in the DLP is also being consideredto optimize staff time and program effectiveness. Since outdoor water use accounts forup to one half the total water use within the District's CII customer sector, finding cost-effectiveways of reducing landscape water use is paramount to ACWD water resourcesmanagement. Includes figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 01/11/2004 Number of Pages: 7File Size: 1 file , 890 KB