A Comprehensive Analysis of Water Conservation in Context of 4 Cities

Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, and some 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. Over the next 50 years, nearly half the U.S.’s freshwater basins may not be able to meet the monthly water demand with anticipated shortages beyond the Southwest, including in the central and southern Great Plains, central Rocky Mountain states, as well as parts of California, the South, and the Midwest. Facing these challenges, solutions at all levels of government are critical.

Although, to date, many water conservation efforts have focused on utility-scale solutions, including reclamation, desalination, and storage projects, decentralized efforts at the individual building scale can, in the aggregate, be equally as impactful.

To quantify this opportunity, the Code Council, which develops and publishes a set of codes and standards that play a crucial role in shaping construction practices, partnered with the University of Miami to release “Water Conservation and Codes: Leveraging Global Water-Efficient Building Standards to Avert Shortfalls.” This report, produced by the University of Miami, examines the critical need for the rapid adoption of the updated water conservation standards contained in the 2021 International Water Conservation Code Provisions (IWCCP).