New development is booming in Central Texas. This is an area with frequent drought
conditions, a limited water supply, and challenging landscape conditions. Currently,
more than 60 percent of residential water goes to landscapes during the summer months.
It is estimated that 80 percent of new homes will have irrigation systems.
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) owns and operates 21 water systems in
Central Texas. In addition, LCRA provides raw water to about 50 water districts and
communities, more than 50 golf course and other irrigation customers, more than a dozen
large industrial customers and electrical power plants and three agricultural irrigation
districts in the lower Colorado River basin. The City of Austin is the largest municipal
user of water from the Colorado River and has its own municipal water right.
LCRA uses a combination of regulation and education to promote outdoor water
conservation with retail and wholesale water customers. Previous conservation efforts,
based solely on education and requests for voluntary adoption of landscape conservation
measures in new development, were largely unsuccessful. Now, in unincorporated
portions of the LCRA water utility service area, landscape Best Management Practices
(BMP's) in deed restrictions and restrictive covenants are used to promote conservation.
Cities that receive water from LCRA are beginning to adopt landscape BMP's into local
ordinances. With the combination of regulation and education, area builders are
beginning to install new landscapes with the potential to use water more efficiently. Includes appendix.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 1.2 MB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 35 |
| Published : | 06/01/2007 |
