Measuring Turf Grass Area in Urban Utah

Abstract:

Like much of the intermountain west, Utah is facing the dual challenge of population growth and stressed water systems.  The population of Utah County is expected to add nearly one million people in the next 30 years, while also facing changes to our water systems because of climate change, potential environmental degradation, and increasing residential demand for water along the Wasatch Front.  Now is the time to think about how we are currently using our water resources and how we can plan for the future.  The overarching goal of this project is to examine a common heavy water user at the household level—turfgrass (lawns)—and assess how we might move towards lower water landscapes at the household level.  These goals will be met by using a mixed-methods approach that includes the following projects:  assessing lawn area and water use, identifying barriers to water conservation, and distinguishing factors that have led some households to implement xeriscaping. This poster examines the first aspect of this project, how to measure lawn areas and thus estimate water usage of turfgrass in one particular city.  For this project, we used Google Earth to quantify lawn area of households in Orem, Utah.  We used Google Earth because we wanted to show how citizen scientists or non-specialized users could become involved in water policy.  Future steps will include comparing our results from this study with more technical methods involving remote sensing and machine learning. 

Keywords: lawns, conservation, gis,

Authors: