It’s no secret that our water supply is in serious trouble. According to the United Nations, nearly two thirds of the world’s population is expected to have limited access to water by 2025. The US Government Accountability Office predicts that at least two-thirds of the country will be in drought conditions by 2013. And last summer, Governor Schwarzenegger called for a 20% reduction in urban per capita water use by 2020. Although everyone is under pressure to be conscious of water use, those in the landscape and agriculture industries are under a bit more scrutiny than the average user.
“Landscaping is a large target for water waste,” says Peter Estournes, vice president and director of operations with Gardenworks and representative with the California Landscape Contractors Association (CLCA). “It’s considered a luxury.”
In addition, landscaping is under increased criticism, says Stephen Smith, president of the Irrigation Association. “That relates to inefficient irrigation or inefficient managed irrigation systems,” he continues.
That leads to a desire by professionals, as well as states and communities, to make irrigation certification a priority. “It’s immensely important that people involved in irrigation be competent and knowledgeable of the products, equipment, and the systems, including long-term management,” says Smith. “That is something that was true 30 years ago, but it is even more true today. Responsible use of irrigation has never been more important.”
The Irrigation Association website lists the following reasons to become certified:
- Greater working knowledge of your profession
- Confidence for you and your customers
- Prestige and credibility among peers and customers
- Knowledge of the latest techniques and practices
- Personal and professional fulfillment
- Professional advancement opportunities
- Enhances the professional image of the industry
“Having certification brings value to one’s work,” says Smith, “but it also demonstrates to others that there’s a level of technology here that we can’t be complacent about.” He compares irrigation certification to that of other professional certification. Smith, who is also CEO of Aqua Engineering, is an agricultural engineer with a focus in irrigation. “From a company standpoint, we don’t hesitate to use our professional engineering licensing as a high bar to promote ourselves to do irrigation design,” he says.
There are a number of irrigation certification and other irrigation-related education programs across the country. Many of them work closely with the EPA’s WaterSense program. Overall, WaterSense was developed to improve national water efficiency for indoor and outdoor use. WaterSense labels certification programs for landscape irrigation professionals that advance the principles and applications of water efficient irrigation. That’s not to say labeling within irrigation is easy.
“You can certify a sprinkler and know a lot about the performance of the sprinkler, but even if the sprinkler is presumed to be efficient, that changes once you put it in the field relative to other sprinklers,” explains Smith. “It’s not so much a product that can be labeled, but a system. We have to be aware of that and realize we have to keep watching the system.”
For example, the system installed can be the most efficient around, with automated controls and drip irrigation and real-time data, but if the operation of the system is changed by a person who doesn’t understand the whole package of the system and how it works together, water will be wasted. And that’s where the certification comes in. The Irrigation Association has certifications available, a process that involves testing and accreditation. Certification requires ongoing educational units and is offered in the following areas: Certified Irrigation Contractor, Certified Irrigation Designer, Certified Water Conservation Manager-Landscape, Golf Irrigation Auditor, Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor, and Certified Agricultural Irrigation Specialist. These programs have been implemented for a number of years.
“The two most important, from my perspective, are Certified Irrigation Designer and Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor,” says Smith.
Certified Irrigation Designer requires various levels of testing and shows a minimum level of competence in irrigation design. Applicants for this certification choose to take a general agriculture or a general turf exam–or both, says Smith–which leads them to a specialty path in areas such as sprinkler irrigation for different types of turf or agriculture uses. Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor, according to Smith, is becoming an increasingly important certification process. According to the Irrigation Association, this certification is involved in the analysis of landscape irrigation water use. Auditors collect site data, make maintenance recommendations, and perform water audits. Through their analytical work at the site, irrigation professionals develop irrigation base schedules. This certification is geared for individuals who are interested in outdoor testing of built irrigation systems.
“It’s all dovetailed in a complex way with the sustainable sites initiatives and the demand by different water agencies,” explains Smith. “There’s testing of landscape irrigation projects to make sure they meet minimum standards. It also dovetails nicely with the WaterSense program.”
This particular certification provides hands-on experience and training to perform audits. “It’s parallel to auditing your house for efficiency to find leaks in doors,” he says. “You are actually testing your running built system and finding out where the application efficiency is, and extrapolating that to find how it can be improved to reduce water application while still meeting the goals to keep landscaping green.”
The administration of the tests is done by the Center for Irrigation Technology in Fresno, CA, and within the Irrigation Association there is a certification board that oversees everything regarding certifications, including new programs. Testing is geographically strategic, held in locations throughout the country throughout the year. It is recommended that anyone involved in landscape design, construction management, or aspiring to work in landscape or ag irrigation, test for certification. “It’s a career move,” says Smith. “Many agencies require this level of certification.”
The Irrigation Association’s certification programs, right now, are specifically for individuals. However, the organization would like eventually to see submittals of whole projects, how it is built and operating, as well as making sure the irrigation is appropriate for the field. “The submittal would be made similar to a building being submitted for the LEED program,” adds Smith. “We would see the design, construction, specifications, and then we would test that system and auditors would determine what the efficiency metrics are. Ultimately, we’d be able to certify whole projects.”
This plan, he adds, is under development. Estournes is involved with two certification programs. One is the water manager certification program through CLCA, and a second program, called the Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper (QWEL), is designed in collaboration with the Sonoma County Water Agency, the City of Santa Rosa, CA, contractors, academia, and others. QWEL is a series of 10 courses held once a week, and two Saturday classes that involve hands-on training. There are also a series of exams. “It’s an introduction to water conservation from the landscaper’s point of view,” says Estournes. “It covers distribution, definition, budgeting, meter reading, soils, and common problems.”
The certification program has been in place for the past three years, and is offered in both English and Spanish. The certification is recognized by the WaterSense program. CLCA’s water manager certification program, Estournes says, was asked for as part of the process in redefining California’s water conservation efforts. “Task forces were put together to look at water usage in the state, and part of that was for urban water use and landscape water use,” he explains.
The results were transferred into a new Assembly bill, which is creating a new water efficient landscape ordinance. “Part of all that process was the need to create certification programs,” says Estournes. “The CLCA took that in hand and designed a unique certification program that is performance-based.” Certification for water managers consists of two parts: a 50-question exam and a performance-based, ongoing management site. The site has to be managed for at least one year at or below the water budget in order to become fully certified. To maintain certification, these parameters must continue to be met each year. “Water budget is capped 100% of ET [evapotranspiration],” says Estournes.
There is also an expert certification, where individuals manage five sites per year at or below a water budget that’s based on 80% ET. “The idea behind that program is to speak directly to the people who are actually programming controllers as the first line to actually start saving water,” he says. “This program is water budget–driven.”
The California certification programs were spurred by government legislation, but, Estournes adds, CLCA felt, as a trade industry and voice of green issues when it comes to legislative actions, it should have a hand in developing certification programs. “When we looked at other programs available, there was nothing that was driven to hands-on saving water, that you could quantify that your certification is creating a water savings,” he explains. “We felt it was important to have a feedback system and that to remain certified you had to manage a project rather than just continue education hours.”
Estournes thinks the two-year-old water manager certification program is unique, but that it has generated interest in other states and countries. Right now, the program is concentrating on CLCA contractor members, but it is open to anyone interested in participating. So far, 60 individuals have been certified through the water manager program. “We have quite a few water providers who have taken the test, but predominately landscape contractors in the fields are the ones in the program,” says Estournes.
CLCA is in the process of utilizing the Internet to make site performance more efficient and get information out. “If you are reading water meters on a monthly basis, you can adjust your practices to the water budget,” he says. “You have the opportunity to adjust your controller programming, increase efficiencies and distribution conformity, trade up to a smart controller–whatever you think is best. By getting a monthly feedback through the program, when you enter your next water meter reading, the program gives you a graph of how you’re doing based on the budgeting for the site. If you are over, you can determine why, and make the fix to get back to budget.”
Estournes adds that there are plans to implement the opportunity to enter water meter readings at any time to better monitor and manage the water budget. “We want them to use less water, and we want to be viewed as part of the solution,” he says.
Individual irrigation product manufacturers have also developed their own training programs. In addition to Rain Bird’s Irrigation Training Classes from its Rain Bird Academy, Ewing Irrigation Products also aims to help those interested in certified landscape irrigation. Ewing doesn’t have a certification program, per se, but provides training opportunities for those who want to take the Irrigation Association’s certification testing. “Our target audience right now is people who want to be certified landscape irrigation auditors,” says Jeffrey Knight, central region education manager. “We offer training to become landscape auditors, which will benefit them when they go to take the certification exam.”
They are targeting that particular class right now because that’s where the interest is highest these days. “When you are done with an auditing class, you’ll be able to evaluate sprinkler systems and base their water usage off real-world ET,” he says. “For example, I could look at your water bill for 2008, and cross-reference it with the real-world ET for 2008. And then, we do the catchment test to evaluate the system.”
And, Knight adds, the result is most people over water. These training classes are held across the country, wherever Ewing has a branch, Knight says, and in 2009, the company is planning at least 25 sessions. The classes last a day and a half, with the first day taking attendees through the steps of an irrigation audit. “We talk about how to recognize the systems that are wasting water and problem areas,” he says. “Then we teach them how to do pressure readings, test spacing, and verify those readings to the manufacturers’ recommendations. What you see on paper and what you see in the field can create a huge disconnect, so we think it’s important to get them out to the field.”
Students are then taught how to put out catchments in a grid pattern around the coverage area of the system. “If it is a perfect system, every cup would have the same levels of water,” explains Knight. Most systems aren’t perfect, however, and this test shows how uniform the system is and where the wet and dry spots are. The information taught in the class is the information covered in the Irrigation Association Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor exam. “We think it is important to learn how to do the auditing before taking the test,” says Knight.
“The class isn’t required. Testing is linked to the class, but it helps to get time out on the field first.” Knight has seen a difference among contractors who work toward certification and those who don’t. “I think certification is a good deal,” he says. “As I go from state to state, the guys who take the initiative to take the training seem to have more interest in doing the right thing. It’s an industry that uses a lot of water, but they want to use it more efficiently. If you aren’t in the know, a contractor will set the system for peak time, and that ends up throwing water around in a wasteful manner.”
The Irrigation Association’s testing is for national certification. However, Texas and parts of Florida require anyone who wants to install an irrigation system to be licensed, as opposed to certified. Louisiana is moving toward having landscape professionals go through the more rigorous licensing program, as well. “Irrigators are licensed by the state,” says Drema Crist Gross, conservation program coordinator for the city of Austin. “We don’t offer certification classes, but we do have continuing education classes.”
This is done through annual WaterWise professional seminars. “It’s a way to get our message out, and for licensed irrigators to get their continuing education credits, often at a lower cost,” she adds. These seminars are eight hours long, and with different speakers that are chosen based on the water authority’s goals and issues at the time. The most recent speakers included representatives from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, the group that handles licensing for irrigators. “They recently put out some new rules about irrigation system design,” says Gross. “We had the speakers come in to explain the new rules and answer questions.”
Inspectors from Austin were also brought in to discuss what designs will or will not pass the permitting process. “We also included a speaker from the Lower Colorado River Authority, a well-recognized meteorologist, to talk about drought conditions in Central Texas, and a speaker who addressed water budgeting issues and how to set them,” says Gross. Other classes in the past included discussions on evaporation, landscaping, and smart controllers–“Different things we feel are important to the irrigation community and water conservation efforts in the city,” she says.
These programs are open to any licensed irrigator in the state of Texas, and Gross says it regularly sells out. “We’re looking to expand them by doing them more frequently, or having shorter, two-hour credit evening classes on very specific topics,” she says. Still, she says, it is a win-win situation for everyone involved. “The irrigators are getting an inexpensive way to satisfy their licensing requirement, and we’re getting our message out.”
Licenses are good for three years, and irrigators need to have at least eight hours of continuing education credits during that time period. “Our seminar fulfills that credit,” says Gross. “We do have people who like to come to them every year, even though they aren’t required to.” Gross feels the seminars are a way to help irrigators design systems that will pass city and state guidelines and also use less water. “We have a staff of auditors who offer a free evaluation of your system,” she says. “The more we’re able to do these seminars and advise the irrigators before they put a system in, the fewer bad systems irrigators will run across in the field. Our goal is to improve the quality of new systems installed.”
In Austin, outdoor irrigation is responsible for 50–60% of summer water usage. “We believe that a lot of systems out there over-irrigate lawns, and a better designed system will use less water,” she continues.
Another certification education option is through an academic institution. For example, the Landscape Irrigation Certificate at University of California Riverside Extension was created in response to student demand, according to Linda Coco, program representative. Students in turf grass management learn the most efficient and effective irrigation practices possible to simultaneously achieve lowest cost, maximum resource conservation, and best plant cares. This program is geared toward those who wish to learn scientific principles of soil-water-plant relationships, landscape plant anatomy and physiology as it relates to water use, and physics and meteorology as they relate to irrigation.
According to Coco, landscape professionals who take this certificate program, which takes a year to complete, will develop technical skills relating to the design, maintenance, and management of large, complex irrigation systems, as well as how to comply with laws and professional standards. Instructors are experts in their field, helping students to develop expertise and skills needed to serve a variety of landscaping careers and applications such as recreational parks, campuses, commercial and industrial parks, association-owned residential common areas, baseball fields, and golf courses. “These certification programs are important because we need to save water,” says Estournes. “It’s become critical that every drop of water put on landscape is used efficiently.”
