Record snowfall in recent years has not been enough to offset long-term drying conditions and increasing groundwater demands in the U.S. Southwest, according
But we still have lawns, which is a significant chunk of water use.
FWIW, lawns aren’t the problem. Take Colorado for example. 97% of the portion of Colorado River water (the rest goes to downstream states like Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Wyoming, and also to Mexico) that Colorado gets to use is agriculture.
Of the remaining 3% that isn’t used for inefficient ag, that whole 3% includes industrial, residential, businesses.
Of the subset of that 3% that covers residential, that subset includes some percentage of lawn water use (your references mentioned 50% to 70%) for the months that irrigation is turned on (in Colorado, late May to mid October.)
Lawns are very far down the scale of concern, but media and industry like to make the problem about the individual instead of admitting responsibility for their inefficient and wasteful processes.
Yes, lawns in desert environments don’t make any sense, but there are entire industries to fry before it becomes necessary to be concerned with that with any amount of alarm. Wet land around homes also helps mitigate wildfire spread, although hopefully plant type, object placement, and technology help mitigate that in the future as xeriscaping and zeroscaping become more common. It also helps slow dirt erosion.
FWIW, lawns aren’t the problem. Take Colorado for example. 97% of the portion of Colorado River water (the rest goes to downstream states like Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Wyoming, and also to Mexico) that Colorado gets to use is agriculture.
Of the remaining 3% that isn’t used for inefficient ag, that whole 3% includes industrial, residential, businesses.
Of the subset of that 3% that covers residential, that subset includes some percentage of lawn water use (your references mentioned 50% to 70%) for the months that irrigation is turned on (in Colorado, late May to mid October.)
Lawns are very far down the scale of concern, but media and industry like to make the problem about the individual instead of admitting responsibility for their inefficient and wasteful processes.
Yes, lawns in desert environments don’t make any sense, but there are entire industries to fry before it becomes necessary to be concerned with that with any amount of alarm. Wet land around homes also helps mitigate wildfire spread, although hopefully plant type, object placement, and technology help mitigate that in the future as xeriscaping and zeroscaping become more common. It also helps slow dirt erosion.