I decided to estimate water usage per year to maintain my family’s home garden. We grow annuals each season and they sit in pots all along our front and back porch. Note that they only survive one growing season so the colder months do not need to be included in the calculations per year.
We bought our watering cans on amazon and they are 36oz. We water our plants every other day and it take three full watering cans to water the whole garden.
\(365\div 4\approx 91\)
\((91\times 3)\div 2\approx 137\)
Above is the math for figuring out how many days out of the year we are actually watering the garden. The first equation shows how many days can be subtracted from the total to account for the winter months. The second accounts for the fact that the garden is watered every other day.
\(\frac{36\text{oz}}{1\text{can}}\times\frac{3\text{cans}}{1\text{day}}\times \frac{137\text{days}}{1\text{year}}\times \frac{1\text{gal}}{128\text {oz}}=\frac{116\text{gals}}{1\text{year}}\)
This shows the amount of water used in the small garden per year. I converted ounces to gallons because it is a more familiar measurement for that amount of water. And again, I know there aren’t 137 days in one year, but it is 137 days of watering in one year.
In regards to the article, it mentions how droughts have forced farmers and residents to fight for what little water they have stored. We used to rely mostly on rain showers to water plants but a decrease in rainfall or an increase in seasonal concentration has made us turn to hand watering. While we aren’t in drought, the patterns of precipitation have changed and led to a domino effect.