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Check the statistics which show reductions of 30-40% in many communities. These savings are achieved by people making dramatic changes. https://www.calwater.c

Check the statistics which show reductions of 30-40% in many communities. These savings are achieved by people making dramatic changes. https://www.calwater.com/latest_news/july-conservation-progress-update/ https://www.calwater.com/latest_news/july-conservation-progr...

kuschku 11y ago
And these dramatic changes are implementing water conservation strategies that have been common in Europe for decades.
- landryraccoon 11y ago
  Interesting. Landscaping lawns and communities into desert ecoscapes is common in Europe? I also wasn't aware that building desalination and greywater recovery plants was in vogue in Europe. Actually, why would Europe institute such measures in the first place? They aren't suffering from drought. In a non drought situation why would you undertake such measures? The reason desalination plants aren't commonly built is that if you have adequate water alternatives, they actually hurt the environment, so there's no benefit.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Well, not directly, but: Watering your lawn is (a) expensive, and (b) seen as wasteful. So most people never water their lawn at all, only letting it survive on rain water, or they collect rainwater from roof collectors and water with that. Usually, not a single liter of household water ends up on the lawn. And most Germans use toilets that never fill the bowl and only rush about 1 liter of water to save water (the new ones without poop shelf, at least). Why we do this? (a) efficiency, (b) water is expensive, even though we have more than we can use. Actually, in my city people use so little water that the water company (despite population growth) has to clean the pipes artificially, because they were designed to self-clean from the constant water stream, but people just don’t use enough water for that. (Why they have to be cleaned? We have insane CaCO3 concentrations in the water. Wash clothes, and your jeans can stand on their own).

kuschku 11y ago

And these dramatic changes are implementing water conservation strategies that have been common in Europe for decades.

landryraccoon 11y ago
Interesting. Landscaping lawns and communities into desert ecoscapes is common in Europe? I also wasn't aware that building desalination and greywater recovery plants was in vogue in Europe. Actually, why would Europe institute such measures in the first place? They aren't suffering from drought. In a non drought situation why would you undertake such measures? The reason desalination plants aren't commonly built is that if you have adequate water alternatives, they actually hurt the environment, so there's no benefit.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, not directly, but: Watering your lawn is (a) expensive, and (b) seen as wasteful. So most people never water their lawn at all, only letting it survive on rain water, or they collect rainwater from roof collectors and water with that. Usually, not a single liter of household water ends up on the lawn. And most Germans use toilets that never fill the bowl and only rush about 1 liter of water to save water (the new ones without poop shelf, at least). Why we do this? (a) efficiency, (b) water is expensive, even though we have more than we can use. Actually, in my city people use so little water that the water company (despite population growth) has to clean the pipes artificially, because they were designed to self-clean from the constant water stream, but people just don’t use enough water for that. (Why they have to be cleaned? We have insane CaCO3 concentrations in the water. Wash clothes, and your jeans can stand on their own).