Benefits:
The Municipal Water District of Orange County’s Landscape Performance Certification Program provides you with a FREE water management tool to help you and your customers:
- Easily track irrigation water use
- Reduce water bills
- Improve the health, appearance, and value of landscapes
- Protect the environment by decreasing urban runoff
- Maintain compliance with NPDES requirements
Other Benefits:
- You will have access to your client’s water consumption data direct from the water agency, and will be able to make comparisons between actual use and a calculated water-efficiency budget.
- Certification: Your company will be promoted based on how well your sites are meeting the established water budget goals. Visit our certification section to see if your company is already in our system. [www.waterbudgets.com]
- You will be able to identify those accounts that are over-watering (due to poor distribution uniformity) for further discussion with the owner/property manager.
Once your company is participating in this program, you can use this site to promote yourself as a water-efficient contractor. - You will have access to periodic bulletins with water efficiency tips and advice.
- You will receive notices on upcoming training sessions, such as the Protector Del Agua (PDA) series, as well as links to events from other industry associations.
All of these benefits are available at absolutely NO COST to you!
How It Works:
The Landscape Performance Certification Program creates a loop of accountability between the Property Owner/HOA Board, the Property Manager, and the Landscape Contractor. A customized water budget is created for each irrigation meter using:
1. Data from Your Customer’s Site
- We take certain basic information from the property, such as contact information, location, and irrigated landscape area for each dedicated irrigation water meter, and store this information in our secure database for your viewing only.
2. Consumption Data from the Water Retailer
- Every month, the water retailer sends us a download of the consumption for all the irrigation accounts.
3. Data from Weather Stations
- We receive a daily data download from three weather stations in Orange County. This data download contains weather information for three regions: a coastal band; a central band; and a foothill band. Contained within this information is an “index” number known as the Evapotranspiration (ETo).
Evapotranspiration: The combined process of both evaporation from the soil and transpiration through plant foliage.
4. Putting It All Together
- We then create a water budget for the site. This budget is an estimate of the annual, monthly, or weekly water requirements for a specific irrigation meter, and is calculated by combining two formulas (one for turf and one for shrubs and all other non-turf irrigated plant material).
Sample Screen Shots
How to Enroll
Request a Site Data Form
If you’ve seen enough and are ready to sign-up, contact us to request a Site Data Form.
Please contact Adriana Villalba at (949) 940-8141, or via e-mail at [email protected], to request a meeting or the Site Data Form.
Or, request a FREE meeting/presentation with our staff
Still have questions about how the program works? Contact us, and we will gladly meet with you to explain the program, its benefits, and how to enroll your sites. We can customize the meeting from a casual discussion to a 30 minute Power-Point presentation. You may even want to invite the property manager (s) that work with you on the sites you manage. If you work for an HOA, we can also meet with the board of directors to present the program to them. And we’ll even bring free gifts – a soil probe and a copy of the book Landscape Management for Water Savings.