Water Conservation Tracking Tool

The AWE Water Conservation Tracking Tool is an Excel-based spreadsheet tool for evaluating the water savings, costs, and benefits of urban water conservation programs and for projecting future water demands.  In addition to providing users a standardized methodology for water savings and benefit-cost accounting, the tool includes a library of 50 pre-defined, fully parameterized conservation activities from which users can construct conservation programs.  Water managers can use the tool in a variety of ways to aid their water resource planning and operations.  

For example:

  • The tool can be used to quickly compare alternative conservation measures in terms of their water savings potential, impact on system costs, and potential benefits to utility customers.
  • The tool can be used in the development of long-range conservation plans.  It can be used to construct conservation portfolios containing up to 200 separate conservation program activities.
  • The tool can be used as an accounting system for tracking the implementation, water savings, costs, and benefits of actual conservation activities over time.
  • The tool has a water loss module that estimates how future water loss may be reduced through proactive leak detection, pressure management, and accelerated repair of reported leaks based on industry-standard research.
  • The tool Includes a California module that can be used by California members to compare projected water use to their AB 1668/SB 606 water use objectives

After major revisions, a new version of the tracking tool was released in September 2021.  This update was done in collaboration with the California Water Efficiency Partnership, and the California Edition was supported by funders listed at the bottom of this page. After fixing a few small glitches, including a pivot table issue, version 4.3 is the most up-to-date version.

How the Alliance Will Help

The Alliance will provide a detailed User Guide with the Tool, as well as one (1) hour of free technical assistance to any member using the Tool.  Additional assistance can be arranged for a cost.  Please let us know about your experiences with the Tool! We would like to feature successful examples of the Tool in use on our web site, so please let us know how it has worked for you. 

Member-Only Benefit

The Tool is available free of charge to AWE members, as a member-only benefit, but it is subject to your agreement to the Water Conservation Tracking Tool Terms of Use. If not already, sign-in below to gain access to the Terms of Use form. Not a current member, join now! 

Related Publications

by Alliance for Water Efficiency and Environmental Law Institute
The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) have released a five-year update to the 2012 Water Efficiency and Conservation State Scorecard: An Assessment of Laws and Policies. As with the 2012 State Scorecard, the 2017 update reviewed, scored, graded states for...
by American Rivers
Says water efficiency can save metro Atlanta $700 million and up to one third of the region’s current water supply. Metro Atlanta could save over $700 million and up to one third of its water supply by embracing water efficiency solutions like stopping leaks and upgrading old buildings...