WATER CONSERVATION IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT Nupur Namjoshi
M.VOC (Landscape Design), Deen Dayal Upadhyay Kaushal Kendra, DAVV, Indore
Abstract - ―Life Depends on water and water conservation depends on you.‖
No living thing, including humans and animals, can thrive without water, making it one of the most significant renewable natural resources. Only 4% of the world's water resources, which are rapidly running out, are in India, which has 18% of the world's population. Only because of water is life on earth possible. Despite the fact that the planet is surrounded by water on three-fourths of the way, people in many parts of India and other nations struggle with water scarcity. They teach us how to preserve and conserve water in order to save the environment, life, and the globe as people face challenges in a variety of professions owing to water scarcity. From the current level of 42 billion cubic meters to about 220, the demand for water is anticipated to increase by year 2025.
One of the most crucial inputs required for crops is water. The growth and development of the plants, yields, and quality of the produce are all impacted by both its excess and scarcity. A continual process, landscape design is a four-dimensional art, particularly when designing gardens. As tree canopies develop, plants develop and the light changes. Every design is influenced by subconscious or conscious memories from the past.
The inspiration comes from a blend of historical gardens, parks, and wildlife, as well as your home's architectural style and the surrounding scenery. The use of landscape design is twofold. It serves as a technique for water conservation in addition to helping to establish a connection between art and function.
Making anything both visually pleasing and functional is the art of great landscape design. The ability to translate concepts into a practical garden composition, which has numerous needs, requires significant talent. Careful consideration has been given to everything from spatial arrangement to different levels of spatial separation, screening, and framing of views, as well as generating movement and mystery. The fourth dimension of a landscape is time, which is continually changing due to climate and meteorological changes and depends heavily on water for growth.
Water management and conservation should be a part of landscape design. There are many ways to increase soil moisture and decrease such losses. Mulching, cropping, tree planting, using fog or dew by net-surfacing traps or polythene sheets, contour farming, moving water from surplus areas to deficit areas by connecting water systems with canals, desalination technologies like distillation, electro-dialysis, and reverse osmosis, and the use of effective irrigation methods like drip irrigation and sprinklers will all help plants use less water. Changing people's attitudes and behaviours, including our own, is the most crucial step in the direction of finding answers to problems with water and environmental conservation. The use of water to improve or maintain landscape development is one of the first areas to be impacted by any water restriction. It is required to investigate a number of novel ways in order to protect the landscape growth in severely dry situations, locations, or circumstances.
Everyone in the green business, regardless of degree, needs to be aware of all the options available for using water more effectively and fully. The following approaches were found to be effective: regulating the amount of water that fell on the site to use it most efficiently; choosing plants that need less water; looking into the possibilities of altering the soil; mulching; installing wind barriers; changing irrigation procedures; etc. According to the research, no single method will be able to conserve all of the required water. There isn't a method that works well for everyone in every circumstance. To make the best use of the water that is available for landscaping while also preserving it, all of the solutions must be coordinated and used in combination as necessary.
Landscape development is one of the first areas cut back during time of shortage for at least two reasons:
1. It is a visible use of water, and
2. Landscape development is regarded as a luxury.
The few very important strategies that can be adopted for water conservation during Designing of a Landscape and during maintenance of the same Landscape are as follows:
1. Determine the order of watering. Prioritize areas that are intensively controlled, such as the greens on a golf course, which are the most valued component of the course and the location of the most important play.
2. Modify irrigation procedures. If the golf course has an autonomous irrigation system, doing this will be much simpler. Use just enough water to keep your plants alive, not to promote growth.
3. Apply irrigation during the ideal period of minimal wind, low temperature, and high humidity. That combination most frequently occurs immediately before dawn in any 24- hour period. Change your cropping and mowing techniques.
4. Check the soil's fertility at first, especially for phosphorus, which promotes the development of deeper roots, increasing the area from which the turf grass can absorb nutrients and moisture. If there is a calcium deficit, use calcium to raise pH to a range of 6.5-7.2.
5. To prevent unneeded leaf growth, maintain a steady and uniform delivery of nitrogen at a low to medium level. If soluble ingredients must be applied, apply them at low rates frequently rather than at higher rates infrequently. If possible, use slow-release compounds. The latter will promote uncontrollable leaf growth. Increase the cut height across the board.
6. The advantages gained—primarily root extension—are crucial, despite the fact that this increases the surface area through which moisture is dissipated and under typical moisture levels may result in stepped-up activity for disease-producing organisms. A golf course green's capacity to withstand stress from a lack of moisture can be significantly improved by raising the height of cut by as little as 1/32 of an inch.
7. Mow frequently. The combination of reduced irrigation and fertilization, higher height of cut and less frequent mowing can induce "hardening of the turf grasses.‖
Expand use of mulch. Apply heavy layers of mulch-any organic debris that's available- around the base of trees, shrubs and flower beds, to hold in moisture.
8. Erect wind barriers, especially where there are large expanses of open spaces. Less than 3 percent of the water absorbed by a turf grass plant is utilized by the plant. Most of it- the other 97 percent, is lost into the atmosphere by transpiration. With an increase in wind, radiation, or temperature as well as a decrease in humidity, transpiration will rise.
9. Actively look for other water sources. Wells and ponds, collections of marginal water, and-the most abundant and most squandered supply-treated sewage effluent are a few of the options. Numerous golf courses across the nation effectively use recycled water for irrigation.
10. Try out some alternative methods for preventing transpiration, using chemicals, emulsions, or films may help to reduce moisture loss by transpiration in plants to some extent.
11. Use landscaping elements to provide the desired effects (such as space separation, shade, ground cover, etc.), and choose plants for each effect to reduce the amount of water that must be applied.
12. When landscaping, try to use native plants (or plants growing in arid regions elsewhere) whose water needs are as close to the local water supply as possible.
13. Use ground cover that doesn't require water or is drought-resistant in place of lawns.
14. Adjust the amount of water applied depending on the plant's stage of development, the season, the soil's composition, the land's slope, and the location of the plant in the garden.
15. Reduce water applications in thick clay soils because these soils lack the oxygen necessary for healthy root growth, and over watering can nearly kill plants by further reducing crucial growth.
16. Use mulches or plastic films to hold moisture in soil.
17. Use mulches with caution to prevent a nitrogen shortage in the soil.
18. Prioritize watering drought-tolerant trees and shrubs during water shortages, avoid fertilising, and put extra effort into controlling insect and disease outbreaks because these impact moisture-stressed plants more than other pests and diseases.
19. Give smaller plants and bushes extra water to prevent them from having their water drained by surrounding, larger trees.
20. Keep an eye out for insects and other pests that are known to be more active during droughts and take action when they do.
21. The best ways to assist drought-damaged trees are deep-root aeration, watering, and temporarily allowing shoots to emerge at the base.
22. Pruning citrus trees saves water, but pruning most other trees does not.
23. Water that is applied slowly enough to prevent runoff onto nearby regions, for long enough to reach the root zone, but not for too long that it wastes water by penetrating past the root zone.
24. Water lawns in the morning or at night. Early watering also distributes out water use more evenly throughout the day, which lowers cost by reducing evapotranspiration losses.
25. Rather of following a timetable based purely on the number of days since the last watering, water lawns when a moisture test shows a need. Commercial moisture metres are available or hand soil test can also be used to check moisture content of any soil.
26. Water lawns, regions under the shade of large trees less frequently to provide moisture for the tree roots, and sunny areas more frequently due to increased evapotranspiration rates.
27. Overlap areas covered by sprinkler-settings by about one-third in Lawns.
28. Hand water dry spots to delay general lawn watering.
29. Accept a less-than-lush green colour all the time on a lawn.
30. Due to their slower rate of demise and lower cost of replacement than other vegetation, lawns should receive the least amount of water throughout any water shortage period.
31. Raise the cutting height of the grass by about 2 inches so that soil that is shaded by the grass blades won't be as quickly dried by the sun.
32. To prevent grass from turning yellow and losing too much water through the wounds, cut the lawn frequently (about 0.5 inches of grass per cutting) and with a sharp lawn mower.
33. Water trees and shrubs using trickle irrigation systems or other slow irrigation techniques. Flooding is preferable to slow irrigation over a long period of time, and both are preferable to hand sprinkling frequently for short periods of time.
34. Provide trees and shrubs more water at each irrigation but irrigate less often.
35. Irrigate in furrows along garden rows to use less water than flooding.
36. Accept a little wilting of garden plants as a sign that they need water because the condition is not harmful especially during water shortage periods.
37. Use warmer irrigation water for earlier germination and faster plant growth.
38. Take out weeds several hundred pounds of water is lost through evapotranspiration for every pound of dry weed matter that grows in or near Lawns , shrubs , ground covers . 39. Dig basins around trees and shrubs to hold water near the roots.
40. Use Grey water from Home Waste water system ( not from Toilet fixtures ) to water turfs along with fresh water alternatively .
41. Re use of water before it enters its natural water cycle is also a form of water conservation technique, treated water from STP plants can be effectively used for watering Golf Course or Larger Lawn areas in public gardens.
42. Use of established plants: are established plants, especially trees, incorporated into the landscape design? These plants are often adapted to low water needed to establish replacement vegetation.
43. Plant Types: Are drought tolerant and high water demanding plants grouped separately?
This avoids overwatering the former and allows for efficient application of irrigation water.
44. Plant Species: Are the plant species used fulfilling site needs as well as water conservation goals?
Some Drought Torlerant Variety of Plants in Indian context are as follows:
These plants can be used for Xeriscaping – a concept of using drought tolerant plants only for Landscaping.
1. Bougainvellia – All Varities ( Bougainvellia Glabra ) 2. Ficus – Ficus Panda, Ficus Benjamina
3. ZZ Plant –Zamiculcas Zamiifolia 4. Devils Tree – Alstonia Scholaris 5. Kaner – Nerium Oleander 6. Crown of Thorn – Euphorbia Milii 7. Snake Plant – Dracena Trifasciata 8. Spider Plant– Cholophytum Comosun 9. Cactus Varieties – Cerecus
10. Dessert Rose – Adenium Obesum 11. Bismark Palm
12. Bottle Palm
13. Sago Palm - Cycus Revoluta
Conclusions as per Site Area: Landscape areas vary in their sizes, from a small terrace or residence say 500 square feets to more than 25000 square feets space between commercial buildings or acres of land for a Garden area in Residential colony. Some conclusions after doing research on strategies for Water conservation in Landscape Design and Management are as follows -
Given below is summary:
S.NO. ITEMS FOR WATER CONSERVATION IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN &
MANAGEMENT
SMALL SCALE UPTO 10000 Sq. Ft.
Area
MEDIUM SCALE UPTO 10000 – 25000 Sq. Ft. Area
LARGE SCALE UPTO 10000 – 25000 Sq. Ft. Area 1. Watering Early morning to
avoid water losses to Evaporation &
Wind
Same as for smaller Areas , Water less to Established plants
Same as for smaller Areas , Water less to Established plants 2. Irrigation Mostly Manual with
some mechanical means to help control water usage
Mostly Mechanical means for irrigation
are best for larger areas for water
Conservation
Automatic and Drip irrigation are best
options for larger scale sites for water
Conservation S.NO. ITEMS FOR WATER
CONSERVATION IN LANDSCAPE DESIGN &
MANAGEMENT
SMALL SCALE UPTO
10000 Sq. Ft. Area MEDIUM SCALE UPTO 10000 –
25000 Sq. Ft. Area
LARGE SCALE UPTO 10000
– 25000 Sq. Ft. Area 3. Recycled Water
(Grey water)
Can add recycled water from home alternatively to Gardens along with Fresh water
Can use grey water waste from domestic
plumbing water waste only to irrigate periodically
Treated water from STP plants more appropriate for larger
size turfs instead of using grey water
directly 4. Soil Condition To add required
fertilizers or manure, aeration of soil and keeping a balance pH
for development of plants
Periodic checking of soil in different areas required as better soil condition helps
retain moisture in soil
Adding natural mulching material in
plant beds will help improve soil conditions of larger
areas
5. Turf Area Turf can be reduced by using Ground covers
instead as they consume less water
Turf Areas can be developed with drought tolerant variety of grass like
Bermuda or St.
Augustine
Turf Areas with drought tolerant variety of grass and some areas can be covered by natural mulch like wooden barks, rubber, Gravel 6. Native plants or Smaller area so plants
will be less hence can Stress should be
given to use more Larger area hence plantation will be
Drought tolerant
variety of plants control usage of plants but Native plants survive easily in less
water condition
Native variety of plants as they adopt
easily to the local climatic conditions and use less water
more so combination of Native and Drought tolerant
variety be used 7. Grouping of Plants
as per their watering needs
Can be easily managed as area is smaller and
all plants are visible
Necessary to group drought tolerant variety and ones which require more
water separately
Number of plants is relatively very high
hence proper grouping most
important
8. Pruning Its important to
prune and cut plants to reduce water losses during water shortage
As per season Pruning and cutting
helps in healthy growth of plants
Larger tress cannot be cut much as they
provide shade and reduce water loss due
to evaporation from soil 9. Paving Surfaces Mulch as paving
surface helps percolation of water
Larger paving areas can have permeable pavers like grass pavers which help
more water to percolate on site
As site area is very large some areas can
be left in natural form instead of treating it, it helps
more water to percolate in soil 10. Shades and Wind
Barriers Man made Vertical Barriers like Boundary
or Tress reduce wind velocity & helps reduce
water losses during irrigation
Patios , Pergolas etc also help reduce wind velocity and Provide shade which reduce water losses, Vertical green walls
also help reduce Wind Velocity
On relatively bigger sites Larger Tress like
Mango, Peepal, Bargad provide shade as well as act
as wind barriers.
