Projects for the Parched

  Construction   PM Network  

Los Angeles, along with other communities throughout the western U.S., is scrambling to mitigate the impacts of an ongoing severe drought. About 14 percent of the contiguous United States was in severe to extreme drought as of July 2015, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Five years earlier, that figure was 3 percent.

“By reducing evaporation, these shade balls will conserve 300 million gallons of water each year,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a press conference in August. The balls cost less than US$35 million—a bargain compared to the US$300 million price tag of a solid cover over the reservoir.

Other creative water-saving projects launched by public and private organizations in the western U.S. include using vibration monitoring to find and fix leaks in aging infrastructure and building water treatment systems that return wastewater to drinkable standards. These projects promise to save millions of gallons of water while cutting costs and reducing waste—but only if project teams secure the resources and community support necessary to deliver them.

“People are trying to address water issues related to the drought in a lot of different ways,” says Neil Grigg, PhD, professor of engineering at Colorado State University and a member of the Colorado Water Innovation Cluster, which supports water…

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