Other water conservation practices

The importance of water conservation and water loss reduction should always be an integral part of the management of freshwater resources and needs to be given prominence in freshwater resources planning. As is suggested by the three interlinking arrows in the recyclable materials symbol, reduction of waste is the first of the several means of resource conservation (the other means being reuse and recycling, both of which are covered elsewhere in this volume). An excellent reference book is Efficient Water Use, edited by Hector Garduño and Felipe Arreguín-Cortés.

For water management purposes, the community can be divided into two basic groups: system users (such as households, industry, and agriculture) and system operators (such as municipal, state, and local governments and privately owned suppliers). These users have a choice of a number of different practices, which promote or enhance the efficiency of their use. These practices fall into two basic categories: engineering practices, based on modifications to hardware (e.g., plumbing and fixtures) and/or water supply operational procedures, and behavioral practices, based on changing water use habits....http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/unit/oea59e/ch31.htm#TopOfPage