Arizona Water Meter
Water Conservation Funding
Seven principles for water conservation
Click to see how these principles affect water use:
- Per Capita Water Use
- Water Rate Structures
- Conservation Measures
- Conservation Ordinances
- Funding for Conservation
- Water Loss
- Effluent Use
To operate a successful water conservation program, it is essential to adequately fund and staff the program. Without money and time, conservation efforts will be shallow at best and not produce the expected results of decreasing per capita water use.
The majority of providers examined spend in the range of $1.00 to $2.00 on water conservation per person in their service area. The town of Payson spends $7.07 on conservation programming per person in its service area — nearly $3.00 more than the next big spender — and has dedicated about 3.3% of the total water utility’s budget to conservation. Payson, coincidentally or not, also has the second-lowest rate of single-family residential water use out of all the utilities in this report.
Per capita funding for water conservation programs varies greatly among Arizona communities. Funding levels, however, do not necessarily correlate with conservation success.