The Challenge
There is an urgent concern about the future of water availability as the Western United States faces its worst mega-drought in over a millennium and drought conditions spread to more and more states throughout the country. While limits on outdoor water use are a common tool to manage water consumption, enforcement of these restrictions can be difficult and costly. Historically, inspectors have patrolled communities to observe lawns for signs of watering at prohibited times. But now, regulators have at their disposal “smart” technologies capable of providing massive amounts of data (e.g., on water use and pollutant emissions) in real-time. These advances can drastically lower the cost and improve the precision and frequency of monitoring —with potentially sweeping implications for compliance and enforcement.
Our Approach
The E&E Lab worked with a mid-size city in California to design a policy to address their water conservation goals, leveraging smart meters to identify and enforce water restrictions. The E&E Lab researchers implemented a randomized control trial—the gold standard for scientific evidence—to vary, by residence, the probability and the magnitude of fines levied for violations of outdoor water restrictions. They found automated enforcement decreases water use by 3 percent and violations by 17 percent. The introduction of automated enforcement reduced city-wide water consumption by 64 million gallons over one summer. The city is now leveraging the data infrastructure the Lab helped to develop to regularly notify households of non-compliance with outdoor watering regulations. They have also redesigned watering regulations to decrease the burden of compliance on residents.
Expanding on this work, the E&E Lab partnered with a public water utility in Colorado to test the effectiveness of low-cost informational tools aimed at reducing inefficient lawn irrigation. Using smart meter data, the researchers identified when residents were irrigating during suboptimal times or exceeding recommended frequencies and delivered targeted alerts. The changes led to a 5 to 10 percent decline in daytime watering and reduced weekly irrigation frequency. Building on this success, the Lab team is now conducting a second trial to explore how real-time usage and pricing information can help correct misperceptions about water usage and pricing. The results will shed light on how informational barriers limit the effectiveness of tiered pricing structures and how targeted communication can enhance both conservation and consumer welfare.
Opportunities for Scale
The E&E Lab is expanding this work across the United States to help cities navigate the water scarcity crisis. They are doing so by partnering with cities to analyze water consumption patterns to improve targeting of water conservation measures and designing and testing tools to improve compliance with regulations and incentivize more efficient water usage. By leveraging real-time water use data, the Lab can provide cities with insights into the impacts of a variety of programs—from turf replacement subsidies to water appliance efficiency requirements.
