WaterWise Landscape Irrigation Calculator

 Click here to download and print the Order Form (pdf format).

Much of the water used to irrigate landscapes is wasted due to inefficient irrigation practices.  The Calculator helps professional landscape irrigators and managers, as well as home owners, save irrigation water while maintaining functional and healthy landscapes.  The Calculator uses actual plant material, evapotranspiration, and rainfall, to calculate how much water the irrigation system should apply, and how much the landscape needs. 

The Calculator provides a quick and easy way to calculate:

• Plant Water Requirement - how much water the plants actually need

• Irrigation Water Requirement - how much water the irrigation system should apply to supplement natural rainfall.

• Irrigation Water Volume - the quantity of water, in gallons, required for irrigation.

• Water Cost - the cost of irrigation water in dollars.

The Calculator is useful for anyone actively involved in the design, installation, or management of a landscape or an irrigation system, or anyone who pays a landscape water bill. In addition to water management information, the Calculator is intended to be useful to the irrigation professional who needs to demonstrate to the consumer the benefits of installing efficient, well-designed irrigation systems. A worksheet provided with the Calculator allows the irrigation professional to demonstrate the real cost of irrigation water and provides a dollars and cents picture of water use. The Calculator is also useful to water districts that are seeking ways to implement water conservation measures.

The WaterWise Landscape Irrigation Calculator was introduced at the Pre-Expo Seminar of The Nursery/Landscape Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, August,  2002.  Jim McCabe of Sensible Technologies, Inc. in Houston and David Smith of Texas Water Audits in College Station led the technical team that developed the Calculator and are currently leading a training team holding sessions for both industry and consumer users.  Anyone interested in training may contact the Texas WaterWise Council at 7730 South Interstate 35, Austin, Texas, 78745, phone 512-280-5182, or email Marilyn Good.

The Texas WaterWise Council developed the concept and the implementation methods. Financial sponsors of the Calculator are: Texas Water Foundation, The Subsidence District, Texas Nursery & Landscape Association, the Learning to be WaterWise Program, and the Lower Colorado River Authority.

The Texas WaterWise Council is a Texas nonprofit organization, a public/private partnership founded with the mission to promote water conservation practices in Texas through a public/private partnership that fosters awareness and implementation of sound water management.  Membership in the Council includes water providers, the nursery/landscape industry, municipalities, regulatory agencies, and members of the public at large.