Campus Water Conservation

Campus Water Conservation

UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden staff continue to cut back on landscape water use, over and above the reductions mandated by the State of California and the University of California Office of the President. These articles provide further details about how our teams approach water resource conservation in our campus landscapes.

 

UC Davis Annual Sustainability Report released

Read the 2015 UC Davis Annual Sustainability Report about the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden's efforts to conserve water through our Learning by Leading internship program, updated landscape irrigations and new approaches to designing our campus landscape.

Weathering the drought: on campus and at home

Over the past year the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden has managed to cut back water use across campus by over 30% from 2013 — that is already well above Governor Brown’s recent 25% water reduction mandate. Read more about how we accomplished this using targeted tree care, irrigation improvements, lawn conversions and using regionally-appropriate plants!

H2Oaks? Campus trees get their own Camelbacks

Teams from the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden’s grounds and landscape services team have started irrigating our younger trees with slow-release watering bags — a fancy description for those big green zippered sacks starting to appear at the base of young trees throughout campus.

Campus turf reduction planning

Last year, thanks to a variety of water conservation efforts implemented by our Arboretum and Public Garden team, our campus was able to reduce our landscape water inputs by 31% — 6% more than Governor Brown’s 25% water reduction mandate — but we are still planning to do more.

Help prepare for the Governor’s statewide water reduction mandate

If you didn’t feel the threat of this record-breaking drought affecting your life, that all changed on Wednesday with Governor Brown’s first ever issuance of a state of emergency drought declaration mandating statewide water reductions and calling for the replacement of 50 million square feet of lawns throughout California with drought-tolerant landscaping.

Water conservation featured in Sustainability Showcase

The Sustainability Showcase, located in one of the main hallways of the Memorial Union, features revolving exhibits highlighting actions our campus units have taken to improve our sustainability. The exhibits may be about conserving our natural resources, being creative with our reuse, engaging with the community, or all of the above.