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Capacity Building as A Policy Instrument in Water Conservation: A Case Study on Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional Consumers

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Abstract

Efforts by municipal water agencies to improve demand end water use efficiency have focused largely on incentive programs and regulatory interventions. However, another important approach to achieving conservation targets is capacity-building, which may be particularly effective when target populations are motivated to improve their consumption efficiency but are lacking information or technology to do so. This case study considers a program by the Santa Clara Valley Water District (CA, USA) which aims to enable conservation among a group of consumers by providing information about current use and potential savings as well as optional access to water saving devices. The impact of this capacity building approach on consumption patterns was quantified by comparing water histories of program participants to a control group of similar sites within the District. Participating sites showed a net savings of 18.22 % when compared to the control group. The study demonstrates that capacity building approaches can effectively compliment other interventions such as conservation incentives to improve demand end water use efficiency.

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Abbreviations

CII:

Commercial Industrial, and Institutional sectors such as restaurants, retailers, manufacturing facilities, and governmental buildings

SCVWD:

Santa Clara Valley Water District

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Jerry de la Piedra, Karen Morvay Koppett, and Virginia O’Rourke of the Santa Clara water District’s Conservation Unit for providing the opportunity to conduct this study, to Robert Siegfried for many engaging conversations about data analysis, and to Daniel Press of the University of California Santa Cruz for inspiring my study of policy. Thank you to Eduardo Espericueta for creating the map presented in Figure 1. I extend my gratitude broadly to the staff and interns of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, Water Wise Consulting Inc., the City of Palo Alto, the City of San Jose, the City of Morgan Hill, and the many participating site managers in Santa Clara County for their assistance in the preparation of this study and for their ongoing efforts to conserve our precious water resources.

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  1. Department of Environmental Studies, University of California – Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA

    Lewis K. Reed

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  1. Lewis K. Reed
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Correspondence to Lewis K. Reed.

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Reed, L.K. Capacity Building as A Policy Instrument in Water Conservation: A Case Study on Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional Consumers. Water Resour Manage 26, 3819–3829 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0105-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0105-2

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