The water budget approach serves as a design tool, allowing the professional to design a sustainable landscape based on a regionally appropriate amount of water. A water budget is a site-specific method of calculating an allowable amount of water to be used by the landscape and then designing the landscape to meet this budget. The budget takes into account plant type, plant water needs, irrigation system design, and applied water that the landscape receives either by irrigation or by precipitation, as described in detail below. Water budgets must be associated with a specified amount of time, such as a week, month, or year. 

• ws-specification-waterbudget-quick-start-june2010 (PDF)(4 pp, 812 K)
• ws-specification-home-final-waterbudget-dec2009 (PDF)(14 pp, 260 K)
• ws-specification-home-waterbudget-comments (PDF)(128 pp, 589 K)