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  • Students, Faculty, & Partners

75% of campus landscape is drought tolerant. Plus, 25% of all landscape uses recycled water.

Spotlight: Water savings

Our creative students recently exhibited their passion for clean water by developing “AQUAholics,” a 12-step program that will help our campus achieve a sustainable water footprint.

For many years, UC San Diego has championed water conservation with strategies like these:

• Monitors that measure soil moisture to better target watering needs
• Computer-controlled irrigation systems that adjust watering based on temperature and humidity
• More than 3,200 low-flow sprinklers installed; 10,000 to go
• Drought tolerant landscaping
• Irrigation with recycled (formerly known as reclaimed) water

Today in California, however, we are facing even more stringent water restrictions because of severe drought conditions. Please explore our Conserve Water Web site for details on the new requirements and UC San Diego’s response.

More about 2.0 water

• UC San Diego is investigating pumping sea water from La Jolla Canyon, a deep off-shore trench, through a closed-loop system to help us cool our campus buildings. Water will then be returned to the sea. Sea water, a clean renewable energy source could offset up to 4 megawatts of energy, potentially saving 100 million gallons of water annually.
• Working with the City of San Diego, we are expanding our already significant distribution and use of reclaimed water throughout campus locations.

Ongoing projects

• Developed in 2008, the campus Climate Action Plan calls for a minimum 4% increase in water conservation on campus annually; new campus plans will accelerate this goal in order to achieve City of San Diego drought goals.
• More than 76% of our campus cleaning products are “Green Seal Certified.” These products not only protect the health and safety of our workers, but also provide environmentally friendly ways to clean.