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REIT Addresses Water Stress with Smart Water Management

Enlists HydroPoint to Achieve Water Conservation Goals in the Face of Rising Drought

Highlights:

  • Saved 143.4M gallons of water and $1.2M in water costs in a single year
  • Using WeatherTRAK and WaterCompass at 61 sites with 310 total irrigation controllers, 86 controllers with flow sensing, 12 flow meter monitoring devices
  • Maintaining curb appeal and thriving landscapes with weather-based smart irrigation

An equity real estate investment trust (REIT) that develops, acquires, and manages apartment complexes across the U.S. saw the negative impacts of droughts across the country and knew they needed to start prioritizing water conservation in a significant way. In 2021, they created a comprehensive suite of goals to address water stress, water management, and water consumption reductions across their properties. They sought solutions that would conserve water while also cutting costs, maintaining the curb appeal of their properties, and ensuring landscape health.

Their many ambitious water goals include reducing common area water-use-intensity in water-stressed areas by 20% by 2027 and implementing a water management plan in 50% of their offices and communities in water-stressed regions by 2025. To help achieve these, the company enlisted HydroPoint for their smart water management solutions.

Task Force Rolls out WeatherTRAK Smart Irrigation and WaterCompass Leak Detection

The organization wanted to address areas of high water stress first to ensure the health and longevity of their communities in these regions. They used the World Resource Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas Tool to assess their portfolio’s water stress to pinpoint high-priority regions. They then created water management plans to reduce onsite water consumption on these stressed properties.

Additionally, the company created a task force to identify actionable measures to reduce water consumption — one of which was to install 31 WeatherTRAK weather-based smart irrigation systems. By doing so, they saw annual water savings of 43,000,000 million gallons, and they’re now continuing to expand the use of WeatherTRAK. They now have systems operating at 61 sites, providing a total savings of 143 million gallons of water and $1.2 million in water costs in a single year.

Most of this smart irrigation installation took place in their West Coast communities, given the severe droughts in recent years. Post-installation, one of their California-based properties is now generating close to 5,000,000 gallons in water savings and roughly $46,460 in water cost savings annually. Another California location also generates some of the most significant savings at around 4,200,000 gallons and $20,963 per year.

In addition to investing in weather-based irrigation, the team’s task force also realized the organization needed more stringent construction standards relative to water fixtures and policy changes to maximize its water conservation. In 2021, they completed 132 water audits at 114 communities, exploring consumption reduction opportunities and ensuring all water systems were operating as efficiently as possible.

With smart irrigation working its proven water-saving capabilities in their communities, the REIT took it a step further by deploying WaterCompass, a leak detection and water use analytics service, to rapidly catch any leaks and identify any abnormal water use. Since implementing WaterCompass, 477 gallons per hour of leaking water has been discovered and resolved, and 118,000 gallons per hour of abnormal water use has been detected and fixed.