Water Efficiency in the Sacramento Region
Making Water Efficiency a Way of Life
Local water providers understand that water efficiency and conservation are important to stretching water supplies in a future with climate change and are committed to implementing comprehensive water efficiency plans and helping customers embrace water efficiency as a way of life.
Over the last 22 years, the region’s water use has been steady even though the population grew nearly 43 percent from 1.5 million to almost 2.2 million people.
A Regional Water Efficiency Strategy
Since 2001, local water providers have been working in partnership through the Regional Water Authority (RWA) Water Efficiency Program to promote efficient water use in the Sacramento region. The Program provides a platform for participants to work together on a regional strategy to preserve local water resources, leverage dollars with other regional utilities and partners, build economies of scale for attracting grants and offering rebates, maximize advertising dollars for broad and consistent customer outreach, and provide a regional school education program.
Consumer Education
Under the Be Water Smart brand, the Program conducts public opinion research to understand the best ways to communicate water efficiency to consumers, creates award-winning outreach programs, implements regional advertising campaigns, connects with the public through social media, regional events and news media outreach, and provides comprehensive water efficiency information on its website BeWaterSmart.info.
Tackling Landscape Water Waste
The Program focuses on stopping landscape overwatering and waste. In the Sacramento region, household water use is driven by hot, dry summers. Water use triples as temperatures soar to 100 degrees and consumers increase landscape watering. During winter, the region’s water use is on par with other areas of the state.
The regional program teaches consumers to water their lawns and yards efficiently and to stop waste by delivering just the amount of water their landscape needs to be healthy, as well as to consider replacing thirsty lawn with beautiful low-water landscaping. The Program also partners with the Sacramento Tree Foundation to demonstrate how to efficiently water trees to help them survive hot summers and more frequent droughts, understanding the important role that trees have in adapting to climate change.