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Water

Prototype Credit

WE 1.1 Water Efficient Landscaping, Reduce by 50%

UC Merced has designed its entire site landscaping within the current 100 acre Phase Development to use 50% less water than projected baseline calculations, which was done through a combination of:

  1. the utilization of California native and other drought tolerant plant materials and limited use of turf;
  2. the use of a sophisticated automated irrigation system that includes centralized control and PC monitoring, field moisture sensors, drip irrigation, and deep root watering tubes for trees; and
  3. constructing the entire irrigation system to utilize reclaimed water sources in the near future.

Large turf areas are traditionally quite common to academic campus landscapes. While turf areas are desirable for heavily used activity areas and play fields, at U. C. Merced, the campus has limited the use of turf grass to all but the most active of public areas. In addition, have concentrated tree planting within and adjacent to turf areas to provide summer shade and thus to minimize evapotranspiration potential during hot summer weather. In areas not subject to heavy use, the campus uses native grasses and other drought resistant ground cover plantings instead of turf.

State of the art irrigation equipment and water efficient irrigation technologies are used throughout the campus. All planted areas are on automated control systems with electronic timer based scheduling that utilize information from field moisture sensors and a central weather station. This allows for constant monitoring and adjustment of individual valves and flows within the system.

Water Conservation

All buildings on campus are achieving a minimum of 20% reduction in water use from state-mandated requirements. Some buildings are able to achieve 30% reductions. In the future, rainwater-capturing systems will be employed as will gray-water recycling for irrigation. The entire campus was plumbed with purple pipe to be used for future reclaimed water. The newest methods available for sewage treatment will also be employed.

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