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Landscape Water Use in Phoenix, Arizona

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Landscape Water Use in Phoenix, Arizona Landscape Water Use in Phoenix, Arizona Item Type Article Authors Martin, Chris A. Publisher University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) Journal Desert Plants Rights Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents. The University of Arizona. Download date 07/10/2021 07:05:41 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/554334 26 Desert Plants 2001 water, 3) CAP water, and 4) effluent. The ADWR Phoenix Landscape Water Use in Active Management Area has a statutory goal of achieving Phoenix, Arizona safe yield by the year 2025. Safe yield means that the amount of groundwater pumped from local aquifers on an average Chris A. Martin annual basis must not exceed the amount that is naturally Urban Horticulture Ecology Research Laboratoryor artificially recharged. Public awareness of increasing Department of Plant Biology consumptive water use has caused a heightened awareness of the need to develop sound water conservation strategies Arizona State University with particular attention given to controlling the amount PO Box 871601 of water applied to outdoor amenity landscapes. Tempe, Arizona 85287 -1601 The Role of Outdoor Amenity Landscapes An Introduction to Landscape Water Conservation Landscaping, or the practice of creating, installing and Cities first arose as complex social structures nearly 10,000 managing outdoor human living environments for the en- years ago. According to anthropologist Charles Redmanhancement of everyday quality of human life, is shaped by (Redman, 1999), many of the earliest cities arose in arid a complex interwoven mosaic of socio- economic values, climates near reliable fresh river water resources. The termthe needs of society, and technologies such as irrigation `oasis' is often used to describe arid cities with abundantand outdoor lighting (Motloch, 1991). Compared to the fresh water resources because of their many concentrated surrounding Sonoran Desert, artificial or `built' landscapes garden landscapes planted for food and amenity. in the greater Phoenix area form an urban forest character- ized by higher plant species diversity and cover (Peterson, The Phoenix metropolitan area in Maricopa County is situ- et al., 1999). Because of this, the carbon acquisition poten- ated at the northeast fringe of the lower Sonoran Desert intial of local irrigated landscape vegetation might be more the broad Salt River Valley of Arizona. Although the mod-than 8 times higher than that of vegetation in the surround- ern day ascent of this oasis city into a regional populationing, unirrigated Sonoran Desert (Martin and Stabler, 2001; center occurred mostly during the second half of the 20th Stabler et al., 2001) with commensurate increased water century, Hohokam Native Americans resided there andcycling potential. numbered an estimated 250,000 during the period between 750 and 1250 AD. These early populations were able toBefore 1960 and the advent of the common use of air con- flourish for centuries in central Arizona's Salt River Val-ditioning, one of principle ways that outdoor landscapes in ley region because of perennial streams and rivers thatPhoenix served the needs of society was to make outdoor flowed from the nearby moisture -laden Mogollon Rim pla-living spaces more habitable by ameliorating high summer teau and White Mountain regions to the northeast. How-temperatures through shading and evapotranspirational ever, sometime around the 14th century AD either a disrup- cooling. To accomplish this, flood irrigation techniques tion in water supplies caused by a sustained time of droughtwere commonly practiced and landscape designs were char- or an encrustation of soil salinity made these lands unarable. acterized by broad expanses of Cynodon dactylon. (Ber- muda grass) and fast -growing broadleaf deciduous shade During the 20th century, construction of local water storagetrees like Morus alba (mulberry) and Melea azedarach reservoirs along the Agua Fria, Gila, Salt, and Verde Riv- (Texas umbrella tree). However, since 1960 the functional ers and the Central Arizona Project (CAP) to transport waterrole of outdoor landscapes in the Phoenix area has waned from the Colorado River have underpinned the rapid re-as Phoenicians generally spend an increasingly greater por- habitation of this ancient population center. United Statestion of time inside controlled atmospheric environments. 2000 census data has shown that the population of theEspecially during the past 20 years, landscape function as greater Phoenix area increased by 47% since 1990 to overa measure of the value of outdoor living space has been 3.5 million (US 2000 Census, http: / /www.census.gov). From superseded by landscape form driven by increasing public 1985 to 1994, consumptive water use increased by 26%interest in conservation of Sonoran Desert flora and water [Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR), http:/(Fig. 1, p.28). Evidence for this change in the role of Phoe- /www.adwr. state .az.us /AZWaterinfo /InsideAMAs/nix outdoor landscapes may be seen in the contemporary amaphoenix.html]. Despite these rapid increases in popu-widespread planting of desert- adapted trees like Parkinsonia lation and consumptive water use, fresh water capture andflorida (blue palo verde) and Prosopis chilensis (Chilean regeneration potentials in central Arizona at the start ofmesquite), perennial shrubs with strong visual accent like the 21" century still exceed use demand, mostly because ofCaesalpinia pulcherrima (red bird of paradise), Hesperaloe declining agricultural land use. However, census popula-parviflora (red yucca), and Echinocactus grusonii (golden tion estimates for Maricopa County in the year 2025 are 5 barrel cactus), and the covering of landscape surfaces with million, and future increases in water demand will certainly decomposing granite instead of turf. We suggest that this require an assertive reassessment of the four primary sources paradigm shift in landscape value signals a change in of Phoenix municipal water: 1) ground water, 2) surface people's attitude toward their immediate outdoor environ- Martin Water Use 27 ment. In this new era, the role of outdoor amenity land-The first and second principles of XeriscapeTM advocate the scape may be to visually enhance the human living experi- planning and design of landscapes through the use of low ence from inside all the while reflecting an attempt to con-water use plants (Table 1). Local Phoenix area municipali- serve natural resources and offer city dwellers an opportu-ties like Mesa (http: / /www.ci.mesa.az.us /planning/ nity to comfortably experience `nature'. zonord.htm) and Chandler (http: / /www.chandleraz.org/ townhall /code2000.pdf) have adopted landscape design and Landscape Water Conservation and XeriscapeTM planting ordinances that recommend or regulate plant fre- The XeriscapeTM movement began in Denver, Colorado inquency and composition of new landscape installations. Five 1981 in response to a prolonged period of drought that be-municipalities in the greater Phoenix area such as the City gan in California in 1975 and persisted in the western of Tempe (http: / /www.tempe.gov /water /water2.htm) even United States until the El Nino winter of 1982 -83. Theoffer rebate programs to residents who convert turf or mesic XeriscapeTM concept as derived from the Latin words xeros dominate yards into xeric or water conserving landscapes. (dry) and scape (a picture or view), is based on a set ofThe intent of these ordinances is to balance water conser- seven principles of landscape management that are meantvation with landscape amenity by giving residents a list of to reduce the flux of water movement through an outdooracceptable low water use, desert adapted or desert native landscape without compromising landscape form (Table 1).plants for landscaping purposes. To create a full landscape In the 20 years since its inception, the XeriscapeTM conceptappearance, municipal ordinances, landscape designers and has been widely accepted and regionally adapted across the architects often counterbalance the fine texture and rela- United States. Popular interpretations and re- interpretations tively open canopies of desert- adapted plants by specifying of the concept have resulted in alterations to its originalan aggregated, dense arrangement of these plants in the predilection to mean everything from "quality landscap- landscape. But are transpirational water loss rates of desert- ing that conserves water and protects the environment" toadapted plants in these landscapes comparatively less than "landscaping with plants that are native to within a 50-their more traditional, mesic counterparts? And is it true mile radius of your home ". As with any ideal thrown intothat water will be conserved in outdoor landscapes because the swirling pot of contrasting self -interest groups, the realof changes in landscape design strategies? world application or practice of XeriscapeTM may bear only partial resemblance to its original intent. In this paper, I In general, transpirational water loss rates by all landscape will review five of the seven principles of XeriscapeTM thatplants in the Phoenix area are lowest and water use effi- may have a direct impact on landscape water cycling in theciency (rates of photosynthesis per rates of transpirational Phoenix area in light of our recent research findings. water loss) are highest during winter (Martin and Stabler, 2001). Though peak times of daily carbon assimilation by landscape plants in Phoenix range from around solar noon during the winter to early morning during June, July and Table
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