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<br />Landscape sizes (sq. ft.) of each property were obtained at the time of the inspection and <br />later used to estimate how much water a household should be using for outdoor irrigation <br />based on their landscape size and the ET rate for the corresponding year. The auditor utilized <br />a measuring wheel to estimate the square footage of the landscape that the homeowner was <br />irrigating. During the analysis of post inspection year water records, CRC staff considered <br />utilizing aerial photograph data for the landscape sizes that some of the participating cities <br />now had available. It was decided to continue using the landscape measurements tal(en by the <br />auditors as it was felt they would be more accurate. Aerial photographs, often used to <br />determine landscape sizes in the development of water budgets, are only able to decipher the <br />size of permeable and impermeable landscape. Thus, the calculations from the aerial <br />photographs could be accounting for landscape that the homeowner was not utilizing or <br />irrigating. <br /> <br />Data Processing <br />Water Records: Historical pre-inspection water records were collected and processed at <br />the end of each inspection season. It is important to note that each city had its own <br />method of collecting and organizing water record data. The file format, as well as the <br />information available in each water record varied significantly from city to city. In years <br />2004 and 2005, very few records were available electronically, mal<ing it necessary to <br />transcribe monthly water record data from paper to an Excel spreadsheet. The <br />spreadsheet was formatted to calculate all of the information that would be needed for <br />analysis. <br /> <br />In 2006, many of the cities had converted to a different water record system and were <br />able to provide the CRC with electronic files. With the help of a computer programmer, <br />the process described above was automated. However, because each file type and format <br />was different, a unique script containing all of the calculations had to be written for each <br />city. In some cases, files still had to be processed and adjusted manually due to oddities <br />in the records that the computer scripts could not address. <br /> <br />The following information was calculated for each property <br />· Total Water Usage (gallons) <br />· Indoor Water Usage (gallons) <br />· Outdoor Water Usage (gallons) <br />· % Water Used Indoors <br />· % Water Used Outdoors <br />· Outdoor inches (based off landscape size and outdoor water usage) <br />. %ET <br />. % +/-ET <br /> <br />In 2004 and 2005, the results of the water record calculations were manually entered into <br />a comprehensive database maintained by the CRC. This database was created in Access <br />and includes all of the participant's contact information as well as the findings from the <br />irrigation inspection, such as soil type, root depth, pressure, distribution uniformity, <br />precipitation rate, etc. In 2006, all of the records that were processed using the <br />automated method were imported directly into the Access database. <br /> <br />20 <br />