Hosted by USU Center for Water Efficient Landscaping

NEW Utah Climate Center Weather Station Network in UT Communities to Support Landscape Water Conservation
Water conservation is critical to Utah’s long-term sustainability, and improved management of outdoor water use is a key element to achieving it. The use of local weather station data to calculate reference evapotranspiration (ET) is one method that can be used to improve urban landscape water use efficiency. Until recently, the Eagle Mountain City and Salt Lake City areas had few publicly accessible weather stations that were appropriately sited and maintained and that had the necessary sensors to make measurements for calculation of the Penman-Monteith ET. Utah State University’s Center for Water Efficient Landscaping and the Utah Climate Center, in partnership with Eagle Mountain City and Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, secured funding to install research-quality urban ET weather stations, 2 in Eagle Mountain City and 5 in the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities Service Area. These new stations, along with an existing ET weather station at the Murray Parkway Golf Course in Salt Lake City’s Department of Public Utilities service area, are now providing weather data to calculate reference ET.

This month we’re fortunate to have Stephanie Duer, Water Conservation Manager with Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, and Joanna Endter-Wada, with Utah State University’s CWEL Team, joining us to discuss how this data can improve irrigation controller scheduling – not only at Eagle Mountain City and Salt Lake City public facilities but for any local resident to access. They’ll briefly cover the basics of the weather stations, the data and accompanying research, and how to access the Utah Climate Center website to see and download data from these state-of-the-art weather stations.

Learn more and register.