The Western US is currently in the midst of the worst water shortage/drought since the late 1980s.  Hopefully we get more rain/snowpack yet this spring, but the way things are looking and the information we are hearing from the media, we had all better prepare ourselves to start using less water.

        Obviously the latest buzzword we are hearing is drought.  This is because we are in the middle of an extreme dry spell here in the Southwest.  Should we really be surprised though, as we do live in the desert?  We should all be responsible users of water, and promote water stewardship of our green industry as being concerned with water use and water waste.  My general thought is if you aren’t already doing what you can to save water with your job, then you probably should find another job as you obviously don’t care enough about the long term sustainability of the golf maintenance industry.

         It is for this reason that we should all do our part, and help ourselves by creating a Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) for our golf courses.  We all need to do our homework and create a DCP to help us better quantify our existing water use and map out what we plan to do if/when our local area or water district enters into various stages of a drought.

        The purpose of a DCP is to establish a plan of action as to how you can reduce water usage for your property in an organized, well thought out manner.  The water managers/superintendents that have a DCP in place will be ready for action when called upon to do their fair share to conserve water.  And will look good in the eyes of their supervisors as well as local water agency personnel as being responsible and proactive representatives of our industry.
 

        - Determine how much water your property uses annually – most common units are Acre-feet (325,853 gallons), but sometimes one might run into CCF or ‘units’ (748 gallons) or 1000 gallons as your billing increments.  
- Determine irrigated acreage – break out into landscape & turf – relatively easy to calculate stepping off or using measuring wheel.  Or if you are really lucky, you have AutoCAD and a digital as-built to do the calcs.  Can analyze in acres or square feet (here in the US).
        - Calculate percent of water used for each area – greens, tees, fairways, rough, etc. – Just determine how many acres or sq. feet make up each management area and then divide by the total area to determine percentages.  I like to break out each area using both a percentage as well as total gallons/A-ft. for each area so I am familiar with quantities for my property areas.
        - Determine what percentage water use reduction will occur with each stage.  Typical percent reductions for drought stages are:  Stage 1 – 10 %; Stage 2 – 20%; Stage 3 up to 40%; Stage 4 – more than 40%.  Again, do the calculations to determine how much water has to be saved for each stage and each area of your property so you can keep a close eye on meter readings and bills to see where you are in relation to your goals.

        Promote your water reduction publicly to your owners, players, members, and management so that they are aware of the situations and the reasoning behind what you are doing as a the superintendent.  
 

        As a person that manages water use as part of your job, you should look into more education for yourself and staff on helping you to better understand the ins and outs of water use calculations and irrigation scheduling.  The Irrigation Association offers classes on Irrigation Auditing, Sprinkler System Scheduling as well as Predicting & Estimating Landscape Water Use.  

        I find that the Predicting & Estimating class is of the most value for understanding how to do your own DCP.  The class teaches you how to calculate the following:  Water Allotment (WA) – how much water the local water district thinks you should be allowed to use.  Water Requirement (WR) – how much water you think you will need based on your plant material and taking into account effective rainfall.  Water Use (WU) – how much water your site actually uses based on flow meter data or run times and valve/sprinkler flows.   

        Irrigation schedules developed in the auditing and scheduling classes promote deep and infrequent watering practices and extending intervals between irrigation events.  These practices can also conserve water.  Developing solid base schedules and working to fine tune them may get you through the first stage of conservation without any noticeable change in the plant quality.

        One way or another, we should all come up with a Drought Contingency Plan for our property so that we better understand where water is being used and what we will have to do in extreme circumstances.  If you would like to more information regading a drought contingency plan, go here!