Town of Gilbert, Arizona, named recipient of SWAT Outstanding Industry Partnership Award
The Landscape Water Budget Program seeks to reduce excess irrigation while helping sustain healthy landscapes.
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA (Oct. 12, 2021) — The Irrigation Association has named the Town of Gilbert, Arizona, as the recipient of the Smart Water Application Technologies 2021 Outstanding Industry Partnership Award. This award recognizes a water provider that has successfully implemented a program focused on partnership building with landscape and irrigation professionals to promote outdoor water conservation.
Through its Landscape Water Budget Program, the Town of Gilbert provides a customized, site-specific landscape water budget for different large outdoor water users based on real-time weather data. The goal of the program is to reduce excess irrigation while helping sustain healthy landscapes.
“The Town of Gilbert’s Landscape Water Budget Program is a great example of how a partnership between a water provider and private industry has resulted in more efficient irrigation practices,” said Deborah Hamlin, CAE, FASAE, IA CEO. “Congratulations to everyone involved in this program in the Town of Gilbert. This SWAT recognition is well deserved.”
The Landscape Water Budget Program provides contractors data on water use at the site, as well as a custom water budget to compare that water use to as a reference point for efficiency. They offer recommendations for improving a site’s irrigation efficiency and work with the site to find custom smart technologies that are best suited for their setup. Since April 2017, they have installed smart irrigation technology at 26 unique sites. This technology includes smart controllers, high-efficiency nozzles, flow sensors and rain sensors, as well as some indoor water conservation technology.
The 2021 Outstanding Industry Partnership Award was announced on Oct. 6 during the WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Exposition. Applications for the 2022 SWAT awards will open on Nov. 1. For more information about SWAT and the annual awards, go to www.swatirrigation.org.