Graduation Year
2022
Date of Submission
4-2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Environmental Analysis
Reader 1
Diane Thomson
Reader 2
Donald McFarlane
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2022 Serena Myjer
Abstract
The environmental impacts of turf grass lawns are particularly important to consider in California, because of its unique Mediterranean climate and ongoing problems with chronic drought. While California is ideal for agriculture, recreation, and year-round living, the occurrence of drought is natural and not uncommon, evident in historical human and paleoclimate records. Drought impacts humans and wildlife including water scarcity, crop failure, water quality, reduced streamflow, and wetland availability. Diverting water from these critical sources for growing turf grass lawns is inappropriate and harmful. This project is the first analysis of landscaping patterns, trends, and changes in Claremont, California using Google Earth imagery. Among the houses surveyed, we found that 46.75% had changes in landscaping and 53.25% did not change landscaping. Using estimates of water savings from literature, we predicted how much water has been saved by landscape conversion in Claremont. For the median area of turf grass removed, 55.07 m², we find that a household is saving around 14,581 gallons per year. This research is an important step towards understanding the impact of landscaping on water usage and advocating for turf grass removal in Claremont and other California cities.
Recommended Citation
Myjer, Serena, "Drought Tolerant Landscaping Trends in Claremont, California" (2022). CMC Senior Theses. 3048.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3048
Included in
Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Water Resource Management Commons
