By Elizabeth Cutright
When practiced consistently and intelligently, water efficiency is the most powerful tool in your water resources arsenal. Low-flow fixtures, smart irrigation practices, strict zoning and use regulation, and public outreach and education–used in concert, these practices can encourage water conservation, limit waste, and allow water purveyors to focus less on meeting demand and more on improving infrastructure and data integration.
This September, I got a chance to see real water efficiency and conservation in action. At Houweling’s Tomatoes in Oxnard, CA, a combination of rainwater catchment and onsite water treatment has reduced water use and increased crop yield. All water not consumed by the plants is collected, treated, and reused throughout the facility, which helps Houweling’s cut down on water use and energy demands. The facility’s extensive rainwater catchment system also helps supplement irrigation requirements, funneling precipitation from the facility’s rooftops over to a 4-acre pond located onsite. The water-energy nexus is also addressed: Houweling’s state-of-the-art cogeneration system is designed to collect and process an additional 9,500 gallons per day as part of the system’s combustion process.
And all these water efficiency practices not only save Houweling’s money, they contribute to the overall sustainability of the site, not to mention increasing crop yield. As proprietor Casey Houweling explained at the beginning of our tour, thanks to the conservation and smart water use practices in place at the facility, Houweling’s is able to grow as much produce on 125 acres as most 3,000-acre farms. And because greenhouse tomatoes command a higher price at the grocery store, Houweling’s actually produces close to 8,000 acre’s worth of tomatoes based on “Farm Gate Value” calculations.
And these water efficient practices can have not only a local, but global impact on water resources and water scarcity.
According to recommendations released by the UN in September of this year, the global water crisis can be mitigated–perhaps even solved–by what they dub “the blue economy.” In other words: water efficiency.
“The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating,” former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said of the recommendations, which were was issued by a consortium of former world leaders–including Nelson Mandela and former US President Bill Clinton–and backed by the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNWEH) and Canada’s Gordon Foundation. These recommendations accompany a report entitled “The Global Water Crisis,” which contains essays on the global water crisis.
According to the report, by improving infrastructure to reduce leaks up to 40% of current water waste could be eliminated. And while improving the efficiency of infrastructure is a pricey endeavor–the UNWEH report estimates costs to hover around $11 billion per year worldwide–there’s significant payback once the repairs and rehabilitation have been competed. The UNWEH also details that for every dollar spent, communities could eventual experience an economic return in the three- to four-dollar range: that’s a 1:4 payback ration at the high end.
But even without intense infrastructure rehabilitation, significant water savings can be achieved, and many of our most effective water efficiency tools also happen to be the least expensive. For example, many water-scarce communities along California’s central coast have contemplated large-scale desalination plants as a way to supplement local supplies. But as Sci-Tech Today reports, many cities and towns along California central coast corridor have discovered that demand for water has diminished, making desalination a less desirable alternative.
“We found that our demand for water had dropped so much since the time we started exploring desalination,” Marin Municipal Water District spokesperson Libby Pischel is quoted as saying, “we didn’t need the water. Right now conservation costs less than desalination.”
And that’s the crux of the issue. Conservation costs less than desalination, and it’s large-scale infrastructure brethren. Desalinated water is still more expensive than most other water resources, and through cheap and efficient water management efforts–including those low-flow fixture and smart irrigation technologies we discussed above–water purveyors can continue to deliver affordable, high-quality water to residents. And that’s because water efficiency efforts, when successfully deployed, are much more economically viable than seeking out or creating new water sources to meet increasing demand.
Elizabeth Cutright is a previous editor of Water Efficiency.
