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Water Conservation Field Services Program
Reports, Manuals and Guidebooks

The following Reclamation publications provide information that may be helpful for agencies and businesses in implementing water conservation practices:

Reports

Summary of Smart Controller Water Savings Studies, Technical Memorandum, April 2008 (PDF, 100 KB) - This document summarizes the findings of a literature review of publicly available reports and articles for water savings studies that evaluated weather- and soil moisture-based (“smart”) landscape irrigation control devices. It serves as a supplemental document to the report below.

Weather and Soil Moisture Based Landscape Irrigation Scheduling Devices, 2nd edition, revised August 2007 (PDF,3.3 MB) - This technical review report documents the overall status of emerging weather and soil moisture based landscape irrigation controller technology. The information is targeted for water agencies to assist in their efforts to promote this technology as a means of conserving water and reducing irrigation runoff-induced pollution.

Manual

Water Measurement Manual, 3rd edition, Revised 2001
     A technical guide to effective water measurement practices for better water management - published in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture

To order a printed copy, please see How to Obtain the Water Measurement Manual.

Guidebooks & Plans

Achieving Efficient Water Management - A Guidebook for Preparing Municipal Water Conservation Plans, July 1997
     Developed to help urban water districts of all sizes and complexities prepare water conservation plans to achieve more efficient water use. Achieving Efficient Water Management, A Guidebook for Preparing Agricultural Water Conservation Plans, 2nd edition, Revised 2000
     Developed to help agricultural water districts and irrigation organizations prepare water conservation and management plans to achieve more efficient water use.

Water Conservation Plans
     These files contain pre-formatted documents (Plan Form and Plan Tables) to help prepare a Water Conservation Plan for various water uses. The documents are structured so that you "fill-in" most of the required information right at your computer.

To download and install:
  1. Click on the file format you want to download.
  2. Select the directory where you want the files to reside (we recommend an empty directory) and select "save".
  3. After downloading, double click on the files using Windows Explorer.
These files are "self-extracting". When you double click on the file, it will release the files into the directory where the downloaded file resides.
Agricultural Water
          WordPerfect format [78 KB]
          MS Word format [48 KB]
          Lotus demo [23 KB]
          Excel demo [12 KB]

Municipal & Industrial Water
          WordPerfect format [39 KB]
          MS Word format [24 KB]
          Lotus demo [22 KB]
          Excel demo [4.4 MB]

Agricultural + Municipal & Industrial Water
          WordPerfect format [78 KB]
          MS Word format [48 KB]

For more information about using or applying these documents or plans, contact Steve Jones at sjones@lc.usbr.gov.

Webmaster: Colleen Dwyer, cdwyer@lc.usbr.gov
Updated: May 2008