The City of Medford recently implemented WaterSmart Software to offer its residents a tool for monitoring their water usage in order to save water, lower their bills, and receive important alerts and notifications from the city.
Utilities have only recently begun improving customers’ understanding of water use and savings through digital engagement, increasing satisfaction, according to a recent WaterSmart Software survey.
In the video, Celeste Cantú, General Manager of the Santa Ana River Watershed Authority, and Robin Gilthorpe, CEO of WaterSmart Software, discuss encouraging more comprehensive and modern water management approaches. One such example, the SAWPA collaboration, integrates management of water projects across a large watershed, instead of relying solely on individual water districts working separately. The SAWPA collaboration—which has invested billions of dollars in water storage, groundwater cleanup, water recycling, and stormwater management—has allowed the region to store and conserve so much water that cities from San Bernardino to Newport Beach have hardly been impacted at all by this year’s drought.
WaterSmart Software, a water utility customer engagement platform provider, announced national survey results that reveal that its software is responsible for a 36% increase in favorability ratings across its utility customers. Survey results also show WaterSmart’s customer engagement platform produces benefits for utility customers. Eighty-six percent of utility customers agree that the platform makes it easier to understand water use, and 66% agree that it makes it easier to save money on their water bills.
In a recent survey conducted by WaterSmart, polling 14,366 customers of those water utilities using the WaterSmart program, they found that WaterSmart is responsible for a 36% increase in satisfaction ratings across utility customers.
Just as energy has been the major resource challenge of the last 100 years, so water is likely to be over the next 100 years and beyond. Yet, the current economics of water production and delivery are not aligned with improvements in consumption efficiency. This article explores this challenge and a path forward for water leveraging data, regulation and markets.
This profile of Rob Steiner, University of Michigan alumnus and co-founder of WaterSmart Software, notes how behavioral science has helped save over 2 billion gallons of water.
Burbank, CA is trying out several different approaches to get its roughly 105,000 residents to save water, including signs, banners and ads that educate residents about the drought. The utility is also using recycled water to irrigate landscaping. With its new drought patrol, software and water recycling program, Burbank has reduced overall water use by 24 percent – which is in line with Burbank’s state-mandated water reduction target.
At the 2015 California Economic Summit in Ontario this week, participants committed to promote policies that will save one million acre feet of water each year for the next ten years as part of the Summit’s “One Million Challenges.” Participants including Celeste Cantú, manager at the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, Robin Gilthorpe of WaterSmart.com, A.G. Kawamura of Solutions from the Land, and Jay Ziegler of The Nature Conservancy engaged in an interactive session where they discussed the state of water use in California and committed to the priorities put forward to achieve this challenge.
Like most problems we face in life, increasingly there’s an app for it. By creating a digital connection between our water and ourselves, WaterSmart has made keeping up with the Joneses as easy as turning off a tap. This innovation is part of Sustainia100; a study of 100 leading sustainability solutions from around the world. The study is conducted annually by Scandinavian think tank Sustainia that works to secure deployment of sustainable solutions in communities around the world.