Free to choose: Promoting conservation by relaxing outdoor watering restrictions

Castledine, Anita; Moeltner, Klaus; Price, Michael K.; Stoddard, Shawn

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.004

Cited by 32 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…OWRs that allow watering during certain times or days may have a limited impact on aggregate consumption, as residents may simply water more on permissible days in order to "compensate" for the lost watering opportunities during the prohibited days (Hensher et al, 2006); this may mean that households overwater while OWRs are in place (Survis and Root, 2012). Conversely, relaxing that rigidity, and allowing households to choose their day for watering, reduces water use (Castledine et al, 2014).…”

Section: Outdoor Water-use Restrictions As a Means For Demand-side Mamentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Frameworks Influencing Outdoor Water‐use Restrictions

Milman

Polsky

2016

J American Water Resour Assoc

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Water‐use efficiency in the United States (U.S.) has improved in recent years. Yet continued population growth coupled with increasingly conservation‐oriented regulatory frameworks suggest that residential water suppliers will have to realize additional efficiency gains in coming decades. Outdoor water‐use restrictions (OWRs) appear to be an increasingly prevalent demand‐side management policy tool. To date little research has investigated the policy mechanisms that govern OWR adoption and influence the prevalence of OWRs. This article fills this gap with an assessment of state‐level policies influencing local‐level restrictions on residential outdoor water use in each of the 48 contiguous U.S. states, and with a detailed illustration of the cross‐scalar dynamic of one state's policy framework in practice. An examination of the implementation of OWRs in 24 neighboring towns in Massachusetts across the 2003‐2012 period indicates the interplay between state‐level and local‐level policies leads to OWRs implementation over extended time‐periods, even when drought conditions are not present. This finding suggests OWRs are being used as a tool for general‐purpose water conservation rather than as a stopgap measure justified by temporary water shortage conditions. Future research should investigate how local‐level water savings vary with differing state‐level approaches.

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Section: Outdoor Water-use Restrictions As a Means For Demand-side Mamentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy Frameworks Influencing Outdoor Water‐use Restrictions

Milman

Polsky

2016

J American Water Resour Assoc

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“…Whilst a variety of approaches are available to inform water planners about demand (see, for example, Castledine et al 2014) stated preference techniques, such as discrete choice modelling and contingent valuation (CV) are also helpful (see, for instance, Hensher et al 2006;Cooper et al 2011;Brennan et al 2007;Syme et al 2004). This is especially the case when options for meeting demand and the related benefits are unknown ex ante.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Willingness to Pay to Avoid Water Restrictions in Australia Under a Changing Climate

Cooper

Burton

Crase

2018

Environ Resource Econ

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Mandatory water use restrictions have become a common feature of the urban water management landscape in countries like Australia. Water restrictions limit how water can be used and their impacts have often been enumerated by using stated preference techniques, like contingent valuation. Most interest in these studies emerged in times of drought, when the severity of restrictions and their deployment had increased and water managers contemplate supply augmentation measures. A question thus arises as to whether the same estimates can be legitimately deployed to water supply projects undertaken when water is more plentiful. This study sheds light on the impact on estimates of willingness to pay when the climatic backdrop to a contingent valuation experiment is altered. We report the results of a comparison between two surveys, undertaken in 2008 and 2012, using a common multiple-bounded discrete choice contingent valuation design, administered across six cities in Australia, covering metropolitan and regional settings. Using a finite mixture, scaled ordered probit model we investigate changes over time in willingness to pay by city, and also causes of individual heterogeneity in willingness to pay. We find that willingness to pay estimates significantly change over time in most regional centres but this is not the case for the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne, once changes in housing prices are included in the analysis.

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“…These weekly watering schedules, which are a central feature of OWR, provide a structured framework to communicate limits on the timing and frequency of lawn watering to end-users. The central assumption behind OWR is that a weekly irrigation schedule will result in constrained lawn watering and thereby promote water savings [5][6][7]. However, depending on weekly rainfall, even a minimal irrigation schedule can allow overwatering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies, including Kenny et al [13], have shown that mandatory water restrictions yielded better water savings than voluntary water restrictions. Existing research has also shown that implementing mandatory water restrictions may actually increase water usage above pre-restriction levels, particularly in times of drought [7,14,15]. All of the aforementioned studies indicate OWR, when implemented solely as a notice informing residents of allowed watering days, can leave potential water savings unrealized and demonstrate the value of refining either the policy itself or the implementation of the policy to maximize water savings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Seasonal Opportunities to Save Water: Using Weekly Rainfall and Evapotranspiration Patterns to Evaluate Outdoor Water Restriction Policy in South Florida

Survis

Root

Pathak

2017

Water Conserv Sci Eng

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Evaluating trends of historical rainfall and lawn water demand on a weekly and seasonal basis is needed for optimizing lawn and landscape water conservation policy. Outdoor water restrictions are a common conservation strategy and typically feature a Bday of the week^schedule to limit the frequency and duration of urban lawn water use. However, outdoor water restrictions may not necessarily result in more conservative behaviors from end-users. Lawn water demand is directly related to weekly rainfall and evapotranspiration (ET) totals, yet regional rainfall and climate variables are seldom taken into account in water restriction strategies which generally sanction a static number of watering days per week, regardless of weather conditions. Where weekly irrigation schedules do not recognize weekly rainfall and are not connected to actual net irrigation needs, there is the potential to unintentionally promote overwatering. Ideally, to maximize water conservation, policy should be based on climate variables and conservation strategies should be synced as closely as possible to the specific hydrologic setting. In this paper, we present the results of a project that used historical rainfall and ET data to determine the typical seasonal and weekly variability of the net irrigation needs in an urbanized corridor of South Florida, USA. We identified times of the year when rainfall provides a significant amount of water on a weekly basis to meet the demand of residential lawns and landscapes and thereby identified opportunities to better align policy with regional climate. We demonstrate the benefit of using a weekly approach to analyze long-term trends in net irrigation need to identify periods or seasons when the 2 or 3 days per week allowed by typical outdoor water restriction strategies would allow a significant amount of overwatering. We propose this weekly perspective is valuable to inform efforts to better sync water restriction policies with climate.

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Free to choose: Promoting conservation by relaxing outdoor watering restrictions

Cited by 32 publications

References 26 publications

Policy Frameworks Influencing Outdoor Water‐use Restrictions

Policy Frameworks Influencing Outdoor Water‐use Restrictions

Willingness to Pay to Avoid Water Restrictions in Australia Under a Changing Climate

Identifying Seasonal Opportunities to Save Water: Using Weekly Rainfall and Evapotranspiration Patterns to Evaluate Outdoor Water Restriction Policy in South Florida

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