With the 8th hottest winter on record since 1895, the Washington State Department of Ecology declared a state-wide drought this week. Though there are limited exceptions for Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett metro areas, thoughtful consideration of your household’s water consumption can only help our local water ecologies. Below are some resources to help you consider how you can reduce your water usage, conserve rainfall, and create water-conscious gardens.
If you live in the Seattle area, Seattle Public Utilities and Saving Water Partnership have a good starting guide for what you can do in your home, from getting a rebate to replace older, less water efficient toilets to free gardening classes for planting drought-resistant gardens. Laura Allen, cofounder of Greywater Action, offers even more ideas in her book The Water-wise Home. Though some projects may seem daunting, clear instructions provide solid guidance for those just beginning as well as those ready to fully revolutionize how water is used in their home.
With gardening season well under way, there are several useful guides for reconsidering your garden space and creating water-conserving, drought resistant gardens, also known as “xeriscaping” (hot tip: using the SPL catalog search bar, change the “search by” to subject and type in “xeriscaping” for even more books on the topic). Low-water Landscaping for Dummies is an excellent place to start when considering any landscaping projects, while Nora Harlow’s Gardening in Summer Dry Climates offers a good overview for how topography and climate relate, as well as a plant resource guide. Robert Kourick’s classic Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All Climates is an excellent primer on how to maximize plant health while minimizing water usage via drip irrigation that includes how to build and maintain water cisterns, reuse greywater, and what type of tubing to use in your drip irrigation system. Stephanie Rose teaches you how to transform your garden into a resilient, self-sustaining ecosystem via 60 DIY permaculture projects in her book The Regenerative Garden. Finally, Olivier Filippi will help you say goodbye to water hogging lawn/grass in favor of gorgeous ground covers in his book Planting Design for Dry Gardens.
For a wider view of water usage and options for long-term water management from an environmental perspective, try Erica Gies’s Water Always Wins, which argues for a Slow Water approach that focuses less on controlling water and more on collaboration with water sources and centers stewardship and community in that work. Similarly, Sandra Postel gives a world-ranging overview of how different communities are coming together to change their relationship with water, working with its natural rhythms instead of against them, in her book Replenish. For a deep dive into watershed management and drought strategy planning, The Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation offers another approach to large-scale, environmentally friendly water management.
I hope you find in these resources inspiration for a more water-conscious life. From changing how you landscape your outdoor space to what kind of toilet you have, every positive change towards water conservation makes a difference, no matter how small.
~posted by V.
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