THE LOS ANGELES TIMES - According to the governor’s office, that ban alone could result in potential water savings of several hundred thousand acre-feet. (An acre-foot of water serves the needs of approximately three households for a year.) But Amir Haghverdi, a professor of water management and environmental sciences at UC Riverside, said such reductions could come with significant trade-offs, such as sacrificing the cooling effect that such grass and plants may offer to communities.
Rather than a total shutoff, Haghverdi said he hoped the state could turn to more long-term solutions such as better auditing of irrigation systems to identify where water is being wasted.
“I am pro-water conservation, but we need to understand what’s going to happen if we’re promoting water conservation,” he said.