With water an increasingly scarce and valuable resource, it’s more important than ever for landscape irrigation designs to include efficiencies in every component of the system—including the pumping equipment.

Water budgeting is a valuable tool to further water conservation efforts. It has been gaining in popularity for the last 15 years or so.

This quip by my buddies in the office is partly true. I’ve been working in my present job for many years and seem to have developed quite a following among our contractors. They call with all sorts of problems, with the hopes of stumping me in the process.

About two years ago at a trade conference, I was talking with a landscape contractor who, up until that point in time, only specialized in design/build in the residential market.

Today’s irrigation technology is rapidly evolving to deliver water more evenly, more efficiently and more affordably. These improvements couldn’t come at a better time.

WATER CONSERVATION INITIATIVES HAVE SKYROCKETED over the past few years forcing many cities into mandatory water restrictions. Some mandate an overall usage reduction while others restrict days and time of acceptable watering periods.

AS A HORTICULTURALIST AND AN IRRIGATION CONTRACTOR, I WITNESS FIRSTHAND THE STAGGERING AMOUNT OF WATER wasted every day in an effort to maintain a beautiful landscape.

Seventy years ago, there were approximately 150 million people living in this country. Today, that number has more than doubled. The population explosion has taken its toll on our nation’s water supply. As a result of increased demand, many of our aquifers are at low levels, and wetlands throughout the country have gone dry. A dilapidated water infrastructure has exacerbated the problem.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND IS A concept familiar to any good businessman. The more people want something, the more they’ll pay to get it. It’s as simple as that. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the mind-numbing high oil prices that have become a constant in this day and age.

LET’S ASSUME THAT YOUR COMPANY gets a contract with a homeowner whose property encompasses the size of two football fields, and, in addition to regular lawn maintenance, that homeowner wants you to install an irrigation system. You and your employees are all very happy—after all, this is a big job.