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No, they don’t. The vast majority of water is used for agricultural and industrial purposes. Even if you completely eliminated lawns, you wouldn’t make a meani

No, they don’t. The vast majority of water is used for agricultural and industrial purposes. Even if you completely eliminated lawns, you wouldn’t make a meaningful dent in water consumption.

simonw 3y ago
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/the-american-obsession-with-lawns/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practic... says "Lawns are the most grown crop in the U.S." - would be interesting to see more detailed data on that.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  The vast majority of lawns don’t get watered aside from the rain.
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    That's not the case at all in California. There's thousands upon thousands of lawns and most people water them all year. Many cities still have ordinances requiring lawns be maintained, you can't just let them die or go to weeds lest you be fined. It's expensive to convert them to drought tolerant landscaping so most people just keep grass lawns. HOAs are militant about lawn maintenance and often restrict how lawns can be redeveloped from grass. It's only in the past decade or so new development has started requiring drought tolerant landscaping. Municipalities have also recently introduced ordinances to limit watering. But this is all a reaction to the serious droughts we've had rather than being proactive.
    - 4death4 3y ago
      And yet total residential usage of water is only 10% California’s residential / agricultural / industrial water usage. Agriculture is 80%.
      - giantrobot 3y ago
        The grass bandaids on commercial lots is not captured by that 10% residential use figure. So all those dumb strips of grass on medians and in front of strip malls get counted in that 80% figure. A lot of that water is wasted by running off into drains. Grass lawns are a waste of water, gas (mowing/maintenance), time, and effort. Reducing grass lawns in residential and commercial spaces would make for a meaningful reduction in the state's water usage with little reduction in economic output.
        4death4 3y ago
        No, the 80% figure only includes agriculture. Not grass fields on commercial lots. Consider this: produce is mostly water. Now consider the weight of all the produce in California (including waste like corn stalks or potato plants) to the weight of all the grass lawns. 8:1 would be an extremely generous ratio in favor of the lawns.

No, they don’t. The vast majority of water is used for agricultural and industrial purposes. Even if you completely eliminated lawns, you wouldn’t make a meaningful dent in water consumption.

simonw 3y ago

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/the-american-obsession-with-lawns/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practic... says "Lawns are the most grown crop in the U.S." - would be interesting to see more detailed data on that.

rootusrootus 3y ago
The vast majority of lawns don’t get watered aside from the rain.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  That's not the case at all in California. There's thousands upon thousands of lawns and most people water them all year. Many cities still have ordinances requiring lawns be maintained, you can't just let them die or go to weeds lest you be fined. It's expensive to convert them to drought tolerant landscaping so most people just keep grass lawns. HOAs are militant about lawn maintenance and often restrict how lawns can be redeveloped from grass. It's only in the past decade or so new development has started requiring drought tolerant landscaping. Municipalities have also recently introduced ordinances to limit watering. But this is all a reaction to the serious droughts we've had rather than being proactive.
  - 4death4 3y ago
    And yet total residential usage of water is only 10% California’s residential / agricultural / industrial water usage. Agriculture is 80%.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      The grass bandaids on commercial lots is not captured by that 10% residential use figure. So all those dumb strips of grass on medians and in front of strip malls get counted in that 80% figure. A lot of that water is wasted by running off into drains. Grass lawns are a waste of water, gas (mowing/maintenance), time, and effort. Reducing grass lawns in residential and commercial spaces would make for a meaningful reduction in the state's water usage with little reduction in economic output.
      - 4death4 3y ago
        No, the 80% figure only includes agriculture. Not grass fields on commercial lots. Consider this: produce is mostly water. Now consider the weight of all the produce in California (including waste like corn stalks or potato plants) to the weight of all the grass lawns. 8:1 would be an extremely generous ratio in favor of the lawns.