Linking Urban Residential Landscape Types in a Desert Environment to Landscape Water Budgets

Abstract

Linking an urban residential landscapes type to a specific landscape water budget is important to water resource management in a desert environment. Yet, no research that we are aware of has effectively associated a specific water budget with a quantitatively determined urban landscape type. The objective of this research was to determine whether a landscape water budget and residential urban landscape type could be related. We previously quantitatively classified urban residential landscapes in the desert environment of Las Cruces, NM, into hard-surface shade-structure, mulch, hard-surface, hard-surface-mulch, mulch tree, turf mulch, turf, tree mulch turf, and turf tree landscape types. In this study, we determined water budget, landscape coefficient, and the portion of the coverage of irrigated and nonirrigated elements for each landscape type. Landscape types in Las Cruces grouped into four distinct water budget groups: no-water, low-, moderate-, and high-water budget. Because of the heterogeneity of the coefficients for grass, plants, and water surfaces that constituted it, the landscape coefficient correlated weakly (r2 = 0.3) with the water budget. Coverage of the irrigated elements correlated highly (r2 = 0.95) with the water budget. Our results suggest that the coverage of irrigated elements in a desert urban landscape is a major driver of landscape water budgets.