[DougB]

It'd be interesting to see who the big water users are in Calgary. To see a residential vs. Industrial/Commercial split and to see a break down of of water consumption of a high-rise residential unit vs. SFH. In the last 20 years there have been a few golf courses which redeveloped into residential areas which probably helped out with the per capita water consumption. With that said I assume some of the golf courses along the river like Inglewood, McKenzie Meadows and Blue Devil have a water license and just pull it straight from the Bow river.

Most of the golf courses use storm water, which I am unsure requires a license. Storm water used by a golf course can't be used downstream so it should require a license.

At one time, the Canada Malting Plant in Alyth was the largest single water user in Calgary. Further back than that I would have expected the two former fertilizer plants in the SE (one at Deerfoot Meadows, the other at Barlow and Deerfoot) or the two former refineries (now Inglewood Wildlands and Refinery Park) to have been substantial users. I think the fertilizer plant at Deerfoot Meadows may have pulled water directly from the river.

 

[Surrealplaces]

One thing I haven’t seen as much of since the 70s and 80s is sprinklers watering parks. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I see far less of it these days. Also over the years with so much of the new subdivisions having small yards with very little grass. I’m sure that also factors in as well. Combine that with some of those big industrial users dropping off and you can see some drops and usage for sure.
I know in my case I became a lot more aware when I was put on a meter and use less than I used to.

 

[DougB]

One thing I haven’t seen as much of since the 70s and 80s is sprinklers watering parks. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I see far less of it these days. Also over the years with so much of the new subdivisions having small yards with very little grass. I’m sure that also factors in as well. Combine that with some of those big industrial users dropping off and you can see some drops and usage for sure.
I know in my case I became a lot more aware when I was put on a meter and use less than I used to.

Calgary also seems naturally greener than in the past. Maybe that is due to more buildings and trees providing shade?

 

[Surrealplaces]

Calgary also seems naturally greener than in the past. Maybe that is due to more buildings and trees providing shade?

Calgary seems to have a more tree coverage than I remember, or at least larger trees covering more area. For example Confederation Park in the late 70's and early 80's was not particularly heavily treed, and was actually quite open. I remember the city regularly using sprinklers on thee grass, but I can't remember the last time I saw the city watering the park. The trees are much larger and covering more. Yards that had no trees when I was a kid, now have large trees.

 

[trtcttc]

Also over the years with so much of the new subdivisions having small yards with very little grass. I’m sure that also factors in as well

I thought this may be counteracted by the fact household sizes are smaller (people having less children and slower family formation) but that doesn't seem to be the case, with household size steady at 2.6 for 20 years. The change in housing style, and more apartments would definitely reduce usage.

The average household size in Calgary in 2021 was 2.6 persons. The average household size in Calgary remains unchanged from 20 years ago.

Data about Calgary's population

Reports and profiles based on Census of Canada data, Calgary Civic Census data, and more. These data products include profiles about Calgary as well as information about specific topics and populations.

www.calgary.ca

 

[CBBarnett]

I thought this may be counteracted by the fact household sizes are smaller (people having less children and slower family formation) but that doesn't seem to be the case, with household size steady at 2.6 for 20 years. The change in housing style, and more apartments would definitely reduce usage.

The average household size in Calgary in 2021 was 2.6 persons. The average household size in Calgary remains unchanged from 20 years ago.

Data about Calgary's population

Reports and profiles based on Census of Canada data, Calgary Civic Census data, and more. These data products include profiles about Calgary as well as information about specific topics and populations.

www.calgary.ca

It's probably a bit of everything, but I think some of those major early gains were just from more efficient fixtures and better system leak detections on the network. I assume the water system is like everything else and follows a kind of 80-20 type rule in a few ways - increase efficiency or reduce waste on the 20% of things that use 80% of the water and the whole system performs substantially better.

The reduced shower length and no outdoor watering probably was the easiest ways to save water this time around. For example, in my situation, a few minutes shorter shower and using only rain barrels dropped my usage by tens of litres a day with almost no other changes. Not everyone is in the same situation, but this wasn't very hard to reduce water usage substantially by just focusing on the 20% least efficient water uses (in my case showers and gardens).

That kind of thing applies all over - switching from a old-school toilet to a low-flow toilet back in the 1990s when low-flow became standard that would save 10 - 15 litres per flush. That's a crazy amount of water savings and all it took was replacing a few fixtures. Expensive during the switch but over a few decades there's practically no "regular" flow toilets left in the whole system. That's probably 100 million litres of savings right there.

 

[Zoom]

That kind of thing applies all over - switching from a old-school toilet to a low-flow toilet back in the 1990s when low-flow became standard that would save 10 - 15 litres per flush. That's a crazy amount of water savings and all it took was replacing a few fixtures. Expensive during the switch but over a few decades there's practically no "regular" flow toilets left in the whole system. That's probably 100 million litres of savings right there.

Most older toilet tanks were between 10 and 13 L and the new ones are all 4.6-6L
On average the new toilets probably save about 6 L per flush, but yes, you are correct, there would be a huge amount of water saved just with the new toilets alone.
I’d be curious to see what water usage was like during the summer months in say the 80s compared to now. When I was a kid growing up in the 80s I remember every yard on the street having sprinklers going during the middle of a hot day, and when those weren’t going, people were washing their cars in the driveway with the hose, running nonstop even when they weren’t using it.
Amazing how only a few habit changes here and there and a few changes in water fixtures can make such a big difference.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

I'd be really curious what happens to the overall water usage over time - sure it will go back up a bit, but there's that whole saying about it takes 3 - 4 weeks to form a habit in general. I wouldn't be surprised if water usage takes a long while to creep back up to "normal" or that the new normal is a bit lower than previous. Anecdotally, I did not find the restrictions overly impactful for my situation - but just made me really think about length of showers, really filling the dishwasher up etc.

Overall, the long-term Calgary's water usage story is quite remarkable, here's two graphs awkwardly shoved together going back to 1972 on daily consumption to give an idea of the trend. Tried to line it up so the line is approximately a consistent scale. We are on a consistent, downward trend in usage per person for decades.

Water usage peaked in the early 1980s at ~800 L / person / day. After a few decades innovation in appliance and fixture design, water meters and better awareness, by in 2023 we are at 351L / person / day. During these recent restrictions we were 20 - 25% even below that (~300 - 325 L / person / day). That's remarkable.

View attachment 577311

It's interesting to see similar changes and rates elsewhere; the above is Metro Vancouver's numbers; it's interesting that we use less water than them given that I can't imagine they water their lawns that much.

My understanding is that Australia is the leader in urban water usage; one source I can find claims that Melbourne used 155 and Brisbane used 127 L per person per day during the Millennium Drought (which was a decade+ long), down from 300 before. I'm not sure if there's an apples-to-oranges issue going on, but rough calculations from the water utility seem to suggest Brisbane is currently around 225 L per person per day. Not sure if that's just pure residential usage (in which case Calgary's number would be 235L or so I think) or total urban water usage, including commercial/industrial.

 

[trtcttc]

View attachment 577634
It's interesting to see similar changes and rates elsewhere; the above is Metro Vancouver's numbers; it's interesting that we use less water than them given that I can't imagine they water their lawns that much.

My understanding is that Australia is the leader in urban water usage; one source I can find claims that Melbourne used 155 and Brisbane used 127 L per person per day during the Millennium Drought (which was a decade+ long), down from 300 before. I'm not sure if there's an apples-to-oranges issue going on, but rough calculations from the water utility seem to suggest Brisbane is currently around 225 L per person per day. Not sure if that's just pure residential usage (in which case Calgary's number would be 235L or so I think) or total urban water usage, including commercial/industrial.

It's all about incentives, pricing and economics works!

Vancouver has high water usage because many homes there are not metered, only 6% were metered in 2019. They have many more older homes (regulation and costs really minimize infills there) which won't get metered for 30 years according to the article.

Why isn't water metering in B.C. universal?

Experts say without further action on water metering legislation, B.C.'s parched condition could only get worse.

vancouver.citynews.ca

Their residential water usage (in 2019) was also much higher than us. "Residential water use in Metro Vancouver is 270 litres per capita per day. That's less than the City of Montreal's 286 litres per capita per day, but more than Toronto's 219 per day or the 210 per day used by residents of Calgary."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-water-restrictions-1.5176561

Compare that to Brisbane, they charge $4.36 AUD per kilolitre, which is equivalent to our 1 cubic metre measurement. A Calgary household using the Calgary average of 19 cubic metres pay $57.87 per month. Equivalent usage in Brisbane would cost $158.99 AUD or $146.27 CAD and that's assuming you never use more than 822L per day since the variable rate would double in that case.

Urban Utilities

www.urbanutilities.com.au