When we turn on the faucet to wash our hands or take a shower, we often don’t think about the amount of water we end up using. Is it a gallon? Two? Ten? Especially when living in student residential halls, we’re far removed from water usage information and consequences, and it can feel all too easy to accept the narrative that individual actions don’t make a difference. However, concerns surrounding water usage and conservation are pressing and actionable if we take the time to educate ourselves about them and make conscious changes to our day to day habits.
Why should we care about water usage? According to the World Wildlife Fund, “less than 3% of the world’s water supply is freshwater suitable and accessible for human use.” If we continue to use water at our current consumption rates, ⅔ of the world’s population will experience water shortages by 2025. In California, we’re no strangers to water shortages, having experienced frequent seasons of droughts, which are correlated with increased wildfire risk, drinking water shortages, degradation of urban environments, fallow agricultural land, and forest ecosystem damage.
Although the implications of water usage and shortages can feel too daunting to address, you have the ability to make a positive impact. Here at Berkeley Housing and Dining Sustainability, our Water Teams have been working to address leaks in various residential halls in order to curb water waste at the university level. The H&DS Leak Auditing Team spent last semester auditing showers, sinks, and toilets at Clark Kerr Campus, looking for leaks, including those that are not obvious to the naked eye. It was found that 39% of toilets, 8% of sinks, and 14% of showers had leaks. At the conclusion of the semester, 79 maintenance requests were submitted for each leaking or malfunctioning appliance. To put these percentages into perspective, a faucet that leaks at a rate of one drip per second wastes approximately 17 gallons of water a day, which can quickly add up if lots of leaks go undetected and unaddressed. Our Water Data Team is working on establishing a baseline of residential hall water usage without leaks so that future leaks can be detected more easily just by looking at the water usage data! We are also continuing to conduct leak audits, focusing on Unit 3 and Unit 1 this semester, with the overall goal of eventually auditing and repairing the leaks in all residential halls
While these ongoing projects aid with water conservation at UC Berkeley, you too can make a huge difference by being conscious about your individual water consumption, and reporting leaking or malfunctioning appliances in your own dorm! As of 2023, an average of 431,000 gallons of water was used daily across campus residential halls. The good news is that each of us has the power to reduce that number.