CWCB WATER CONSERVATION PLAN DEVELOPMENT GUIDANCE DOCUMENT / June 2005
Each section of the CWCB Water Conservation Plan Development Guidance Document is available in its complete form as a pdf using the links in the first column. A directory of the pdfs is also available. The linked pages in subsequent columns contain excerpts from the pdf files.

View complete pdf of all nine steps

STEP 2 - CHARACTERIZE WATER USE AND FORECAST DEMAND

[Excerpt]
This step looks into the future to identify changing (presumably increasing) water demand related to expanding customer needs – because of a growing residential population or because of expanding industrial and commercial demands, or both. During Planning Step 3, the future demands will be compared to the baseline conditions established in Planning Step 1 to identify gaps in future water supply needs and estimate costs of developing new water supplies, building infrastructure and operating and maintaining the future water supply system.

Water Use Characterization

• Potable versus non-potable
• Customer classes
• Large customers
• Indoor/outdoor use
• Seasonality and other temporal aspects of water use
• Trends

This guidance document recommends that planners prepare forecasts for five-year, ten-year, and twenty-year intervals. Additional time points can be included as well. The longer the planning horizon, the greater the uncertainty of the forecast. Forecasts should be revisited and updated on a regular basis.