Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / William P. Winslow III / Access to water has always been a critical and often times conflicted issue along
Colorado's Front Range. With current and projected population growth in the state of Colorado
it can be expected that the importance of the issue will only increase. In order to control future
conflicts and costs, communities throughout Colorado have started to update and implement
water conservation programs to address demand and delivery issues. A water demand category
that has been commonly targeted by community water conservation programs is the designed
urban landscape. This study explores the effectiveness of landscape water regulations in urban,
landscaped open space as tools for water conservation.
The study examines the effectiveness of landscape regulations using three landscape
regulations in the city of Colorado Springs. The three landscape regulations represent city and
development landscape regulations and guidelines implemented before and after 1998. The
effectiveness of the three regulations is measured from the results of four evaluations (regulation
composition, landscape design, landscape installation and maintenance, and landscape water use)
that represent the steps necessary for the development and maintenance of water efficient
landscapes. The tool of measure in the four evaluations is the application and enforcement of the
research based Xeriscape principles in the codes, policies, and guidelines found in the three
landscape regulations.
The results indicated that regulation changes that occurred in the City Landscape Code
and Policy Manual in the late 1990's effectively created water conserving landscape regulations.
The post 1998 landscape regulations used a diverse combination of water-wise principles that
were not only suggested by the codes, policies, and guidelines but also enforced through
inspections and submittals. The diversity of water-wise principles in the regulations and the
balance of citations and enforcement were the major elements that reduced water use and
increased conservation in the evaluated landscape tracts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:KSU/oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/882 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Schneider, Joseph |
| Publisher | Kansas State University |
| Source Sets | K-State Research Exchange |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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