1 / 17

North Carolina Homeowner Irrigation and Water Use Survey

North Carolina Homeowner Irrigation and Water Use Survey. Dr. Barbara Fair NCSU Cooperative Extension. Cooperating Agencies. Funding: NC Legislature appropriation for education, promotion & implementation of water conservation

sanura
Download Presentation

North Carolina Homeowner Irrigation and Water Use Survey

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. North Carolina Homeowner Irrigation and Water Use Survey Dr. Barbara Fair NCSU Cooperative Extension

  2. Cooperating Agencies • Funding: • NC Legislature appropriation for education, promotion & implementation of water conservation • Grant Administration - NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (NCDA&CS) • Survey Development: • North Carolina State University • NC Green Industry Council • NC Division of Agricultural Statistics (NCDA&CS and National Agricultural Statistics Service ) • Research/Analysis: • Department of Horticultural Science, NCSU • Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, NCSU • Environmental Finance Center, UNC CH

  3. Telephone Survey • Survey conducted July/August, 2009 • Survey included 6 NC Utilities • Charlotte –Mecklenburg County Utility (CMU) • Fayetteville Power & Water Commission (FAY PWC) • Greenville Utility Commission (GUC) • Hendersonville (HEND) • City of High Point (HP) • Orange County Water & Sewer Authority (OWASA or Chapel Hill) • Total number of respondents: 1,826 (49% response rate)

  4. Survey Response by Utility

  5. Watering Frequency and Lawn Condition

  6. Water Use per community and lawn type

  7. Growing season water use

  8. Seasonal Water Use-“NEVER WATER LANDSCAPE”

  9. Water use for each irrigation system type

  10. Does your community have watering restrictions? QUESTION: Does your community have watering restrictions in place? PERCENT THAT SAID “NO”: • CMU- 94% • FAY PWC- 50% (50% said “Yes” or did not know) • GUC- 97% • HEND- 96% • HP- 93% • OWASA- 68%

  11. Communities with Watering Restrictions • Question: Did you change your water use? • “NO” OUTSIDE INSIDE • CMU 63% 63% • FAY PWC 82% 70% • GUC 81% 72% • HEND 76% 72% • HP 78% 71% • OWASA 59% 47%

  12. RATE these… • RATE EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: 1- strongly disagree; 2-Disagree; 3- Neither agree/disagree; 4-Agree; 5- Strongly agree; 6 Do not know • THE SUPPLY OF WATER IS… • An important economic issue 83% • An important environmental issue 84% • WATERING RESTRICTIONS ARE NEEDED 49-55%

  13. Rate these… % who Agreed or Strongly agreed • IF WATER BILL WENT UP $20/MTH, WOULD REDUCE WATER USE W/OUT RESTRICTIONS… 62% • DURING DROUGHT TRY TO FOLLOW RESTRICTIONS……………………………………………... 95% • MAINTAIN LANDSCAPE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS……………………………………………………… 63% • PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WATER BILL…………. 77% • PREFER UTILITIES CHARGE HIGHER PRICE RATHER THAN EMPLOY RESTRICTIONS……………………… 24%

  14. INFORMATION • Only 19% indicated they had searched for information about water • Of those- 70% got information from internetor newspaper • 18% contacted local extension office/community college • 84% never heard of NCSU TIMS website (Turf Irrigation Management System website) or WATER-WISE WORKS! • Only 13% knew requirement to be licensed irrigation contractor

  15. Summary • 75% of landscape is lawn (in Chapel Hill <50%) • 60% lawns are warm season species • Regular waterers indicated their landscape is important and in ‘fair to good’ condition • 12% had an irrigation system • No system: 5,700 gal/month avg. growing season • System: 13,710 gal/month avg. growing season • Made greater effort to reduce outdoor water use • 63% have had systems inspected • System w/Smart controllers used more water than standard system (with or without rain sensor)

  16. Summary continued… • Watering restrictions did not reduce water use • But most agree they are important tool • Prefer restrictions versus extra $20/month • Most respondents get info from internet • What’s OWASA doing to get reductions of indoor H20 use? • Despite acknowledgement that water is important, DID NOT translate to reductions in use

  17. Thank you! Barbara Fair bfair@ncsu.edu 919-513-2804

More Related