Turf Conversion

UNLV strives to reduce outdoor water use by 25 percent by the year 2010. Since 1995, the university has reduced turf by 1,056,126 square feet, with an estimated water savings of more than 9 million gallons and over $20,000 annually. Our efforts include:

• Computer-controlled watering of campus turf is done in compliance with Southern Nevada Water Authority guidelines. This enables automatic shutdown with the use of flow sensors, decoders, and automatic irrigation adjustment through an evapotranspiration database, which is linked to UNLV's weather station for automatic irrigation adjustment due to changes in weather.
  
  
• All landscaping around new buildings is now xeriscape.
  
  
• More than 50,000 square feet of turf has been replaced with desert landscaping at the Shadow Lane Campus.
  
  
• A landscape design is in progress to reduce the heat-island effect of parking lots through tree planting in a project being planned in partnership with the U.S. Division of Forestry.