Effect of Water Conservation on Water Demands

A new method for predicting long-range water demands was developed to quantify the post-drought effectiveness of water conservation in the San Francisco Bay Area. The method used general relations between water use and population density, and employee density that were derived for the Bay Area. Several alternative water conservation programs were tested using the projection model and the resulting water savings ranged from 4% to 16% by the year 2000. The costs of water conservation were compared with those for building new water supply projects. It was concluded that water conservation was more cost-effective than other sources of water supply.