Normally, when the Pacific Northwest Regional Water Resources Team has looked at water survey results in the region, differences between states have received a lot of attention. However, there are often substantial differences within individual states. For instance, people in drier eastern Washington often see issues differently and consequently take different actions to address water issues than residents of wetter, western Washington. Consequently, when looking at water use in yards in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho we decided to split the three states based on annual precipitation. Consequently, we came up with two ecoregions – the wet and the dry areas (Figure 1). Ecoregion I, known as the wet ecoregion, consists of all counties west of the Cascade crest in Washington and Oregon. Approximately 7,500,000 people live in this ecoregion that contains the two largest metro areas (Seattle and Portland) in the Pacific Northwest. Ecoregion II, known as the dry ecoregion, consists of all of Idaho and the counties east of the Cascade crest in Oregon and Washington. Almost 3,000,000 people live in this ecoregion that contains the Boise and Spokane metro areas. Figure 1. Two PNW ecoregions based on annual precipitation. The data presented in this update was collected from the 2007 regional survey on water resource issues in the Pacific Northwest. Over 1,000 surveys were completed in this Dillman-based mail survey. Almost 99 percent of people living in the dry ecoregion (Ecoregion II) reported that they water at least some portion of their yard in the summer (Table 1). Conversely, only 74 percent of the wet ecoregion (Ecoregion I) use supplemental water in their yards during the summer. Residents of the dry ecoregion were more likely to water lawns (92 vs. 49 percent), gardens (68 vs. 48 percent), and their landscaping (62 vs. 40 percent) than people living in the wet ecoregion. Table 1. The effect of state of ecoregion on the tendency of PNW residents to water a portion of their yard in the summer. Action Wet Ecoregion Dry Ecoregion ---------------------- % ------------------------ Water yard in the summer 74 99 Water lawns 49 92 Water gardens 48 68 Water landscaping 40 62 When asked about outdoor water conservation practices that have be instituted in the last five years (since 2002), 63 percent of the residents of the wet ecoregion reported that they now do less summer lawn watering (Table 2). Less than 40 percent of the dry ecoregion residents have taken similar options. Obviously, supplemental water is necessary to have a green lawn all summer long in the drier region, while, cutting back on watering in the wetter ecoregion may not result in dry, brown lawns.

Pacific Northwest Regional Water Quality Coordination Project Partners Land Grant Universities Alaska Cooperative Extension Service Contact Fred Sorensen: 907-786-6311 http://www.uaf.edu/ces/water/ University Publications: http://www.alaska.edu/uaf/ces/publications/ Idaho University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System Contact Bob Mahler: 208-885-7025 http://www.uidaho.edu/wq/wqhome.html University Publications: http://info.ag.uidaho.edu/Catalog/catalog.html Oregon Oregon State University Extension Service Contact Mike Gamroth: 541-737-3316 http://extension.oregonstate.edu/ University Publications: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/ Washington Washington State University WSU Extension Contact Bob Simmons: 360-427-9670 ext. 690 http://wawater.wsu.edu/ University Publications: http://pubs.wsu.edu/ Northwest Indian College Contact Dan Burns: 360-392-4328 dburns@nwic.edu or http://www.nwic.edu/ Water Resource Research Institutes Water and Environmental Research Center (Alaska) http://www.uaf.edu/water/ Idaho Water Resources Research Institute http://www.boise.uidaho.edu/ Institute for Water and Watersheds (Oregon) http://water.oregonstate.edu/ State of Washington Water Research Center http://www.swwrc.wsu.edu/ Environmental Protection Agency EPA, Region 10 The Pacific Northwest http://www.epa.gov/r10earth/ Office of Research and Development, Corvallis Laboratory http://www.epa.gov/wed/ For more information contact Jan Seago at 206-553-0038 or seago.jan@epa.gov
	The Project Land Grant Universities, Water Research Institutes and EPA Region 10 have formed a partnership to provide research and education to communities about protecting or restoring the quality of water resources. This partnership is being supported in part by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). Our Goal and Approach The goal of this Project is to provide leadership for water resources research, education and outreach to help people, industry and governments to prevent and solve current and emerging water quality and quantity problems. The approach to achieving this goal is for the Partners to develop a coordinated regional water quality effort based on, and strengthening, individual state programs. Our Strengths The Project promotes regional collaboration by acknowledging existing programs and successful efforts; assessing program gaps; identifying potential issues for cross-agency and private sector collaboration, and developing a clearinghouse of expertise and programs. In addition, the Project establishes or enhances partnerships with federal, state and local environmental and water resource management agencies, such as by placing a University Liaison within the offices of EPA Region 10.
	Table 2. The effect of state of ecoregion on the tendency of PNW residents to use conservation practices in their yard in the summer. Conservation action Wet Ecoregion Dry Ecoregion ------------------------- % ------------------------ Less lawn watering 63 39 Early morning or evening watering 66 84 Drip irrigation - shrubs 19 41 Timers on sprinklers 23 60 Even though residents of the drier ecoregion were less likely to reduce summer lawn watering, they were more likely to implement other water conserving BMPs (best management practices) to conserve water use in lawn watering. For instance 84 percent of drier region residents confined their lawn watering to the early morning or evening hours (Table 2). This conservation practice was more widely used in ecosystem II than I (84 vs. 66 percent). Residents of the drier ecoregion were also more likely to use the water conservation practices of drip irrigation for shrubs (41 vs. 19 percent), and using timers on sprinkler systems (60 vs. 23 percent). Based on the survey data, even though residents of the drier ecosystem are more likely to water their lawns during the summer, they have adapted conservation practices to address water quantity issues in their region through individual actions in their yard. Basically, in the last five years water conservation practices have been implemented in the drier ecoregion on a one yard at a time scale. Survey data from Alaska was excluded in this analysis primarily due to the small number of surveys returned. If Alaska were included the PNW would actually have three distinct ecoregions. The southeastern west panhandle region would be part of the wet ecoregion (Ecoregion I). The main part of Alaska would be the third ecoregion characterized by low precipitation with cold temperatures. Summer watering in the new Ecoregion III would probably not be widespread due to low summer temperatures.
	National Water Quality Program Areas The four land grant universities in the Pacific Northwest have aligned our water resource extension and research efforts with eight themes of the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Animal Waste Management Drinking Water and Human Health Environmental Restoration Nutrient and Pesticide Management Pollution Assessment and Prevention Watershed Management Water Conservation and Agricultural Water Management Water Policy and Economics
	NIFA is the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a sub-agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, and is the federal partner in this water quality program.

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HOME | About | Calendar | Contacts | Links | PNW Water Updates | Sitemap NIFA National Water Quality Program This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2008-51130-04734. all external sites will open in a new browser window page last modified on August 15, 2008