Smart irrigation systems include controllers that can adjust schedules based on weather and soil moisture, valves with pressure regulation to prevent misting, and sprinklers that deliver more precise watering such as these from IrriGreen. Modeled after commercial inkjet printer nozzles, they have a digital valve-in-head, pop-up rotor with a 14-stream, multi-volume nozzle. As the sprinklers rotate, a server automatically adjusts stream direction, flow and distance to precisely place water on the turf. Each zone can have up to 50 mapping points. (IrriGreen)

The concern for water conservation, even in areas of the country not affected by drought, is great. The Toro Company puts it plainly when they state that, ""?(R)?it is the cost, quality and availability of water that are the issues; and they are growing in importance throughout the country and the world."

ETwater, a smart irrigation product manufacturer asserts, "Consumers and businesses throughout the U.S. have been facing"?(R)? greater water restrictions, and fines for overwatering their property. Water is scarce and the costs for using it are increasing."

The most recent drought monitor map showed only a few states that did not have at least one area designated abnormally dry or worse. And according to the EPA, up to 4.5 billion gallons of water are wasted every day in the U.S. - lost to evaporation, wind drift, overlap, overspray, and excessive runoff - because of inefficient irrigation systems. It's not an exaggeration to say the need for efficient irrigation design and installation is also great. As the Toro Company concludes, "Our industry needs to be part of the solution. Our future demands it."

The Right Aim
The technology and knowledge for more sustainable irrigation management are at hand. The technology includes smart controllers, precision sprayers and nozzles, rain and soil sensors, valves with pressure regulation, flow sensors and more efficient drip emitters.

The knowledge includes the all the science that helps landscape professionals decide when, where and how to use this technology.

Probably the biggest hurdles you will face with installing smart irrigation systems are customers balking at the added costs. But real cost savings can be realized over the long run. A case study, which will be referenced throughout this article, will show that.

In 2004, Pacific Green Landscape began working for Westview Neighborhood HOA in Mira Mesa, Calif., near San Diego. At the time, water bills for the property including its nine acres of slopes, two acres of planters and half acre of turf were running around $16,000 a month.

A Green Blueprint
As with all irrigation installations, whether new or retrofitted, Pacific Green had to first determine the best system design based on the particular landscape they were working with.

An exhibit that just opened at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., illustrates this well. Called the Grass Roots Initiative, its objective is to promote the economic, environmental, aesthetic, and recreational benefits of turf grass.

"Obviously the industry has come a long way in the last 15 to 20 years," says Geoffrey Rinehart, Grass Roots program coordinator. "You see more precise irrigation, more slow-release fertilizers, better turfgrass varieties. So this offers an opportunity to showcase the newer varieties in conjunction with best management practices."

The exhibit's irrigation system, which was designed by the Irrigation Association, has to facilitate many turf elements including a golf hole and a sports field.

The plan called for a smart controller, a 2-inch mainline that branches off to 1-inch laterals, and seven different heads from three different manufacturers, not only to demonstrate the numerous options available to landscape professionals but also to serve different purposes. And even though the display does have some ornamental beds, no irrigation was installed in them due to the area's 40 inches of rain annually.

The U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., recently opened a turf exhibit titled Grass Roots. The many different areas are irrigated with a wide variety of sprinklers. Here, a Kentucky bluegrass area is irrigated with Rainbird 1800 Series rotary nozzles. Other turf areas (and their accompanying irrigation equipment) include a warm-season/cool-season lawn display with Hunter MP Rotators, a sports field display with Hunter I-20 rotors, and general lawn areas with Rainbird 5000 Series rotors. (U.S. National Arboretum)

A portion of the Grass Roots exhibit's golf hole display is irrigated by Toro 570Z Series heads. (U.S. National Arboretum)

Toro's Evolution Controller can interface with a weather sensor or a soil moisture sensor to automatically determine efficient amounts of irrigation. A USB port allows for computer setup and updates. (Toro Company)

Many other factors come into play in irrigation system design. Terra Prima ("earth first" in Italian) of Orange County, Calif., recently installed mostly natives on a very large property that needed new landscaping. The irrigation system selected provides overhead watering via spray heads, which, according to company owner Cherie Ciotti-Roco, is best for California natives.

"I did some research and I also spoke to some contractors that do nothing but California natives and they all said the same thing" says Ciotti-Roco. "If you install California natives and you use drip lines, they die. The academic explanation for this would be that in nature, they don't get water dripped on their roots; they get sprayed when it rains."

So she specified a 1-inch mainline, .75-inch laterals, eight valves grouped by sun exposure and 16 to 18 Toro low-flow heads with different throws off of each valve.

The installation, whose garden was designed by Rama Nayeri of Creations Landscape Designs, won the Single Family Residence / Green award given by the Orange County chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association.

Taking Control
One of Pacific Green Landscape's key steps in their irrigation retrofit of Westview Neighborhood was to upgrade the old irrigation system to a central-style smart controller system, which is designed to automatically determine how much water plants actually need before irrigation.

Smart controllers are generally broken down into two categories: ET-adjusting and soil moisture sensing. ET refers to evapotranspiration, which is the combined effect of soil evaporation and plant transpiration. ET-adjusting controllers use weather sensors that gauge air temperature, solar radiation, humidity, and wind to estimate how much water is lost through evaporation and transpiration.

Soil moisture sensing systems use an in-ground reading of current soil moisture content to estimate the amount available for plant water use. When the available amount drops below a set level, the system directs irrigation to replenish the water.

Some smart controllers such as the cloud-based ETwater smart irrigation system wirelessly receive their watering schedules from servers that have accessed local weather and rainfall data and used it to compute evapotranspiration.

Toro's Evolution Controller can interface with a weather sensor or a soil moisture sensor. At the Grass Roots Exhibit, the controller is a Baseline model with moisture sensor capability that can handle conventional wiring and a two-wire system, both of which are being used.

Regarding the controller that Pacific Green chose, "The board was a little hesitant due to the cost," said Mike Regan, owner of Pacific Green Landscape.

But with the installation, the Westview HOA has reduced its water consumption by about 40 percent.

At a large residential property in Fullerton, Calif., Terra Prima installed mostly natives and other drought-resistant plants and chose to irrigate them with overhead spray from low-flow Toro heads instead of a subterranean drip system because research by the landscape company showed that the natives decline when the primary water they get is through their roots. The "river" of rocks will serve as a swale when it rains; holding some water and dispersing it slowly. (Terra Prima)

The Genius• Irrigation System was installed by Common Grounds Lawn and Landscape at Plaza Park in Lonsdale, Minn., to irrigate 3,300 square feet of lawn divided into three sections bordered by sidewalks and separated by walkways, a central concrete area, and a large sand play area. Just four sprinklers total, installed in the interior of the lawn sections, were required, as was 70 percent less underground plastic pipe than a conventional system. (IrriGreen)

Well-defined Delivery
The most common types of irrigation sprinklers are fixed sprays, rotary sprays, rotors, micro-irrigation and drip. According to Toro Irrigation, drip or micro-irrigation is best for areas within five feet of foundations and hardscapes, and for planted areas that are not more than five feet wide.

Shrubs and ornamental beds are best served with fixed sprays, or micro-irrigation if plant size will hinder sprays from effective distribution. For planted areas five to15 feet in diameter, Toro advises fixed sprays.

Rotary spray nozzles get their recommendation for planted areas 15 to 24 feet in diameter; rotors for planted areas greater than 24 feet in diameter; drip irrigation

One very recent innovation in sprinklers comes from IrriGreen. Their Genius™ Irrigation System digitally controls multi-stream, multi-volume nozzles to shape watering patterns to a landscape's contours, including curves, angles, corners, and slopes.

The idea was conceived by engineers who designed nozzles and fluid control algorithms for high-end commercial inkjet printers. The sprinklers have a digital valve-in-head and a pop-up rotor with a 14-stream, multi-volume nozzle designed to maintain uniform water distribution throughout each zone as the system automatically adjusts stream direction, flow and distance from zero to 35 feet. Below ground, a wired network connects the sprinklers to a server.

The pattern of each sprinkler is mapped out with a wireless handheld device.

"This advanced system requires just one sprinkler in the middle of each zone to cover the entire zone, watering evenly from the inside out with minimal overlap," states Gary Klinefelter, founder and CEO, IrriGreen, Inc. "Because of this, our system uses 30 to 50 percent less water."

Smarter Still
The use of reclaimed water can play a key role in smart irrigation and can reduce overall costs. Pacific Green Landscape and Westview Neighborhood took advantage of San Diego's recycled water system, which began in 2007. The landscape contractor installed the necessary infrastructure and now all of Westview's landscape is irrigated with reclaimed water.

ETwater recently launched a free Web service and site survey to help you create an optimized irrigation plan for your customers' properties. Using a satellite view of the property and its basic landscape details, a report specifying the precise amount of water necessary to maintain a landscape's most favorable plant health is automatically produced. This service is available at www.etwater.com/survey.

Toro Irrigation offers this strategy to determine an efficient watering schedule. On a healthy landscape, decrease the watering by 10 percent for two weeks and see if it becomes stressed. If not, keep decreasing by 10 percent until stress appears then return to the previous setting.

Another way that Pacific Green Landscape lowered Westview Neighborhood's overall costs was by knowing about, and obtaining rebates through local water agencies.

"The rebates and the help from Pacific Green Landscape to secure them was a big selling point for the board and made the upgrade much more affordable and well worth the investment," said John Kalas of Castle Breckenridge Management, the property manager for Westview Neighborhood.

All the efforts paid off: the cost of water for the HOA was $53,611 in 2011 but only $21,107 for the 2014 fiscal year.

This case study offers proof that landscape professionals can be a large part of the overall solution by educating themselves and their customers on how to maintain landscapes with less water and then recommending changes such as climate appropriate plants, weather-based controllers, soil moisture sensors, low precipitation rate sprinklers, and sub-surface drip irrigation.

Green space, and all the environmental and personal benefits that accompanies it, will continue to be important. As long as the necessary steps to improve water use efficiency are taken today, a future of lush, healthy, attractive landscapes will not evaporate.