June 2012

From: The Mean and Metered Streets

Metering and Irrigation

Irrigation is one of the biggest water use concerns for urban water districts. EPA estimates that of 29 billion gallons of water used daily by US households, 30%—nearly 9 billion gallons—is devoted to outdoor water use. In dry climates, that usage can reach as high as 70%.

“In most municipal districts, especially in the South and Southwest, they put people on time-and-a-half to drive in the middle of the night to check for water violations and writing tickets,” says Scott Williamson, CEO of Capstone Metering.

Capstone’s IntelliH20 can program the meter for specific water times and water restriction times.

“For example, if I’m not supposed to water Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays until whatever time and it uses any water in that timeframe, it will automatically call in and let the municipal district know there is a violation without them having to drive out and look for it,” says Williamson.

Also, in the event a water district gets to a point of mandated water rationing, continued violations can result in meters being programmed to curtail the amount of water that can be used.

“While the sprinkler may go off, the valve or the meter would only allow 10% of the water to flow instead of the regular 100%,” says Williamson.

He says the response to the technology for that purpose has been “overwhelming.

“These are the things that the municipal districts want to see from all over the United States—actually, globally,” adds Williamson. “We’re seeing a very high response and demand for that type of technology, because in certain areas, they don’t want to roll trucks because they want to save fuel, and in other areas, they’ve got such a high water conservation that has to be managed, they want to be able to know what’s going on and curtail it.”

Global Water’s Graham Symmonds says there’s a “tremendous opportunity” to manage landscape water in a more efficient way in urban areas through modern technologies.

“Once you have a more real time understanding about how much water you’re using for landscape irrigation, then you can provide other products that can come into the communication network that the meters are sitting on,” says Symmonds.

“You can bring in soil moisture content, weather data, and evapotranspiration, which would eliminate overwatering, the biggest use of water,” he say. “You can still maintain your landscaping and cut water down dramatically.”

With the systems measuring soil moisture, temperature, humidity, and wind speed, “you’ve got the ability to now water to what the plant needs and not just water by time,” says Symmonds.

Many irrigation systems water by time and thus tend to overwater, Symmonds says, adding there might be an adjustment for seasons.

“You’ll see it raining and irrigating at the same time,” he adds. “What you can do with the data now is you can tailor the volume of water that you deliver to that irrigated part of the land to exactly what the plant needs. It becomes its own little control system to where you don’t have to go around and change timers—it’s automatically compensating for wet days and dry days.”