Full Description

Controversies on the amount of water that can be saved by water conservation continue to surface. Much of the water used in California for urban and agricultural purposes is exported from the San Francisco Bay Delta. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the recipients of this water, has pioneered in developing water conservation Best Management Practices (BMPs) which could be applied on a statewide basis. Estimating the water saved by BMPs in southern California is complex due to the large number of people (15,000,000) living in 150 cities with different socio-economic and climatic conditions. The MWD-MAIN Water Use Forecasting System was used to project water savings for eight BMPs in 57 water demand areas selected to represent Metropolitan's service area. The BMPs ranged from indoor plumbing retrofit to large landscape water audits. This paper describes the development of the Best Management Practices and Reduction and Coverage factors used by MWD-MAIN to compute the water savings. Results are expressed in acre-feet per year and overall percentage reduction from the base water use projected for the year 2000 and 2010. Projected costs of water saved in dollars per acre-foot show that there is a considerable range in the BMPs cost-effectiveness.

Product Details

Published: 01/01/1991 ISBN(s): 0898675928 Number of Pages: 8File Size: 1 file , 260 KB