Browsing by Subject "Residential water use"
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Item Assessing Urban Residential Irrigation Performance Using a Water Budget Approach(2014-12-16) Lewis, Alan ChristopherWasting water by excessive irrigation of urban residential landscapes is a ubiquitous problem. By reducing irrigation in excess of plant water needs, homeowners and cities save substantial quantities water. Although water utilities can use a variety of approaches to encourage customers to reduce their consumption, some residences may use water more efficiently than others. By understanding patterns of irrigation performance among customers, water utilities can develop more economical approaches for encouraging water conservation. Irrigation performance can be assessed by comparing outdoor water use with a landscape water budget. This requires an accurate estimate of irrigated landscape area, which can be difficult to obtain for citywide datasets. A bivariate approach using tax appraisal information is proposed, which can be applied in any county. Irrigation performance was assessed for 5,565 single-family residences by examining their conformance to monthly water budgets. Nonconformance was defined as outdoor water use exceeding the monthly budget volume. Large lots were found to overwater by significantly greater volumes than smaller lots. However, lots with smaller landscape areas tended to overwater more frequently and apply higher volumes per unit area. These findings suggest new management options for addressing consistently wasteful water use and improving efficiency.Item Residential water use in Austin and Sunset Valley, Texas : can our use be predicted from economic and climatic factors?(2008-08) Kennedy, Brian Joseph; Butler, Kent S.This paper discusses residential water demand in Central Texas, specifically the Cities of Austin and Sunset Valley. Predicting and managing residential water demand is a much researched topic that has gained importance as water has been recognized as a finite resource whose conservation and efficient use becomes more important as population grows and development patterns sprawl. Using monthly water use data from both cities, a statistical analysis was conducted of usage numbers and patterns. Several variables were considered in the modeling process including: monthly precipitation and average temperature, house size (sq. ft.), lot size (sq. ft.), appraised value of homestead, type of landscaping and presence of pool. For the City of Austin, aggregate monthly water distributed to single family residences and climate data that corresponded to each month were used in a linear regression for the fiscal years 2003-07. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between water use among single family residential Austin Water Utility customers and precipitation and temperature (R² = .456). A more thorough examination of water use in Sunset Valley revealed a somewhat inconclusive relationship between residential water use and the aforementioned independent variables. Both a "fixed effects" panel data model and a simple linear regression model reported extremely low R² results (both .097). Several reasons are proposed in an attempt to explain the results, which differ from previous studies but no clear reason is identifiable.