Heaps of water used on lawns
Trevor Nichols - Aug 16, 2017 - Biz Releases

Image: Contributed
In some cases, Okanagan Valley households use almost three times more water than the Canadian average.

There are a lot of beautiful homes in the Okanagan, boasting some truly spectacular landscaping.

But in our effort to maintain the verdant vegetation filling our yards, Okanagan Valley residents are using heaps and heaps of water. In the height of the summer, water consumption in the valley soars to nearly three times the national average.

According to Chhipi Shrestha, a Ph.D. candidate at UBC OKanagan, during peak demand consumption tops out at approximately 1,000 litres a day in the Okanagan Valley. That contrasts starkly with the Canadian average of just 340 litres a day.

The overuse, he says, is “primarily” due to lawn irrigation.

“The Okanagan Valley is a semi-arid region, and even though we have lots of lakes, the valley also has the lowest amount of freshwater available in Canada,” Shrestha says. “At the same time, we have one of the highest per capita use of domestic water in the country.”

Ed Hoppe is the water quality and customer care supervisor with the City of Kelowna Water Utility. He says compelling residents to be mindful of their water use “is definitely a challenge every year.”

With a massive lake winding through most of the valley, Hoppe says it can be tough to convince people water conservation is important.

“People aren’t really paying that much attention because they always believe that water is there,” he says. “For people to buy into the fact that they’re stressing the system, either they don’t care, or it doesn’t really affect them in any way.”

While Hoppe says there isn’t technically a water shortage in the city, there are “some real challenges” keeping up with the demand, especially since he needs to make sure there’s enough water in the reservoirs for firefighting activities.

Water use in city is highly dependent on the weather, and with so little rain this year demand has spiked, but Hoppe says the city’s education and conservation measures are having an effect.

Relative to the city’s growing population, he says, demand is generally going down. Recent water sustainability statistics from the city somewhat support his assertion.

The report shows consumption in 2015 (the last year of published data) was 436 litres per capita per day (LCD). That’s lower than in 2007, when consumption was 466 LCD, but higher than several preceding years, when the LCD dropped as low as 392.

For Shrestha, who has published several research papers about water use, distribution systems, and the energy consumed supplying water to homes, the amount of water used in the valley remains troubling.

The ecological footprint is “staggering,” he says, when the energy used to distribute water is considered.

However, Shrestha’s research also suggests communities can be specifically designed to help mitigate water consumption.

Key findings from his research show that residential density significantly affects the efficiency of water distribution systems.

The higher the residential density, the lower the per capita water demand, energy use, net carbon sequestration, and life cycle cost of water distribution systems.

“Water, energy, and carbon emissions are important elements of urban water sustainability; these elements are interconnected,” says Rehan Sadiq, UBC Okanagan’s associate dean of engineering

He says Shrestha’s research suggests community developers should consider the importance of constructing medium to high-density buildings in urban neighbourhoods to achieve optimal “watergy.”


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