Education is touted as one of the most effective and inexpensive measures for
reducing water consumption for major cities. Coupled with additional water reducing
strategies this education can have a significant impact. While, this is a generally accepted
principle in the water resources community it has been difficult to accurately quantify the
savings. Studies attempting to quantify reductions from these programs have been limited
to small samples of neighborhoods. San Antonio is recognized as one of the leading
conservation programs in the country at reducing the consumption of its customers. This
study focused on over 3,000 customers in San Antonio who were classified as high-end
users. The average monthly consumption for this group in June of 2006 exceeded 60,000
gallons per month. Each customer was sent an educational packet by mail with
information to conduct an audit of the water use indoors and outdoors. Many of the
customers used a free service allowing a trained professional of the San Antonio Water
System to conduct their audit at no charge. Three groups were identified (1) those who
received a educational packet, (2) those who conducted a home audit and reported they
had conducted an audit, (3) those who had a free audit conducted by a trained technician.
The water consumption for six months was tracked and compared to the previous year's
consumption. Each of the three groups showed savings with those in the third group
showing the greatest savings. Lastly, a cost analysis was conducted showing the
effectiveness of the program in reducing consumption by cost.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-08-819 |
| Date | 2009 August 1900 |
| Creators | Rice, Jeremy Joseph |
| Contributors | Kaiser, Ronald |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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