Blackwater

Rain water, gray water, and blackwater systems can aid arid areas. Reducing the amount of water used for landscape irrigation is challenging, yet extremely important to the drought affected areas of the U.S. Landscape watering needs within the U.S. vary greatly based on many different factors: local climate, soil conditions, native plants, plant selection, and micro-climates on the site. In many locales, rainfall can be nature’s irrigation system, while in drought affected areas precious potable water provides most of the source for landscape irrigation. Yet even with these differences, saving water is very possible. In most cases, simple changes can result in water savings between 10% to 20%. By reusing water, savings of 50% to 100% are achievable. First Steps The first step in saving water is maximizing the efficiency of the irrigation system. Once that is accomplished, incorporating a water reuse system (i.e., rain water harvesting, gray water, or blackwater) makes sense. (Efficient irrigation systems will obviously reduce the cost of any new water-reuse systems.) Irrigation System Efficiency. Obvious simple system fixes such as addressing leaks, adjusting heads to not over- or under-spray, getting the controller set right, adding a rain sensor, and upgrading the controller to an EPA WaterSense weather-based model will result in a reduced water bill and a less costly water reuse system. The EPA provides a water budgeting tool which is handy when determining how much water should be applied to a landscape. It can be found at epa.gov/watersense/water-budget-tool. Soil & Mulch. Another step to ...