AGENCY TESTIMONY
NYC's improved water supply resilience and conservation efforts
0:11:24
·
55 sec
Paul Rush explains the factors contributing to NYC's improved resilience to droughts, including increased precipitation due to climate change and a 35% reduction in water demand through conservation efforts.
- Water usage has decreased from 1.5 billion gallons per day in 1979 to 1 billion gallons per day currently.
- The reduction in demand is attributed to targeted investments by DEP, water efficiency standards, and conservation measures by New Yorkers.
- These efforts have made the system more resilient to droughts.
Paul Rush
0:11:24
The drought we're coming out of is the first we've experienced in 20 years.
0:11:29
In part, this is due to increase in precipitation due to climate change and a 35% reduction in water demand through conservation efforts.
0:11:39
In 1979, we used 1,500,000,000 gallons per day of water.
0:11:45
Today, that's down to 1,000,000,000 gallons per day.
0:11:48
This reduction in demand is also a result of target investments by DEP, the emergence of water efficiency standards, as well as water conservation measures by good New Yorkers who have steadily reduced the daily water demand, all of which makes our system more resilient to droughts.
0:12:10
I should note that when we talk about drought conditions impacting the water supply, we're referring to conditions upstate in the watershed, not conditions here in the city.
