Water Budget Calculator Created for Residential Urban Landscapes in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 6
Abstract
The current methods used to calculate urban landscape water budgets are limited because they lack site specificity. The objective of this study was to create a landscape water budget web interface based on ground-proofed information, such as plant coefficients (), vegetation components, and reference evapotranspiration (). Using Albuquerque, New Mexico as the base city, mixed landscape and monthly turf grass coefficients for each zip code in Albuquerque were developed. The spatial variability of zip code and weather anomalies was assessed because of their potential effect on water budgets. Evapotranspiration varied among zip codes, months, and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases. To improve the water budget estimate, the interface accounts for spatial and temporal variability of the monthly, historical (monthly and yearly), and the ENSO phases . Because nonturf landscape plant s were unavailable for Albuquerque, the authors developed a Region Match Analysis to transfer nonturf plant s from the most similar California climate region to Albuquerque. The interface allows users to input an address and view its image. Users can digitize a site image and calculate the water budget based on either total vegetated areas, areas of trees, shrubs, and grass, or areas of specific plant species. The water budget calculation based on the developed approaches showed a reduction in the estimated water budget compared with the common water budget approach. The web interface can be utilized as a planning tool to estimate water budgets for new developments, irrigation scheduling, and planning for ordinances and policies. The web interface uses improved methods to calculate water budgets and possesses an enhanced potential to provide accurate water budgets.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Caiti Steele for assistance with the Albuquerque residential landscape mapping project that provided some of the data used in this project. The authors acknowledge Lauren Radosevich for a critical review of this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office through grant NA07OAR4310407 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at New Mexico State Univ.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 6 • June 2012
Pages: 525 - 533
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 23, 2011
Accepted: Nov 28, 2011
Published online: Dec 1, 2011
Published in print: Jun 1, 2012
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