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Peter Gleick on grass: “Maybe it’s time to put the residential turf lawn in the same category as smoking on a plane: socially irresponsible, undesirable, and ultimately, eliminated.”

Posted by: Maven on February 21, 2010 at 7:17 am

From Peter Gleick at the City Brights blog:

“I am participating this week in the 15th Annual Water Conservation and Xeriscape Conference and Expo, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I’ve been thinking about grass. Those of us who work on water issues in the western US and elsewhere know that a part of our water quantity and quality problems is the consequence of the vast amounts of water consumed by ornamental grass, or turf, or lawns. When early immigrants to this country came over from Europe, they brought with them their ideas of landscaping, mimicking the grand English gardens with sweeping expanses of green, manicured lawn. And when those early Americans moved west, that idea came with them again, into a climate that was completely unsuited for grass and a landscape that couldn’t afford the water.

Water Number: 3 to 5 acre-feet per acre. This is how much water, in hot, dry western climates, that turf grass can suck out of our rivers, streams, and groundwater aquifers to evaporate into the air. As Amy Vickers, a leading water conservation expert and anti-lawn crusader has put it, “America’s biggest drinking problem isn’t alcohol: It’s lawn watering.”

Today, more than half of all urban water use in most western states goes to landscaping, and most of that goes to trying to maintain green turf. In places like Las Vegas, as much as 70% of all residential water use goes to outdoor landscaping. … “

Continue reading this post at the City Brights blog by clicking here.

February 21, 2010 · Filed Under Drought Tolerant Landscaping

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