Water Budget Tool
EPA developed the WaterSense Water Budget Tool, Version 2.0 to help builders, developers, landscape designers, irrigation professionals, and other interested parties improve water efficiency through landscape and irrigation design. Using local climate data and user entries, the tool is intended to compare estimated water use for a designed landscape and irrigation system to one using practices typical of standard new construction. The tool can be used for both residential and commercial landscapes to help the user make landscape and irrigation choices by zone to reduce water use and utility costs. This tool isn’t meant to determine irrigation scheduling—instead, local sources of real-time weather data are more appropriate for that purpose.
Unfortunately, Version 2.0 of the tool is only available for U.S. Zip Codes. Canadian users can still access the Water Budget Tool, Version 1.04. Note that this version will only feature peak watering month, not year round data as is available in Version 2.
Help Using the Water Budget Tool
- The full data used in the Water Budget Tool is available via excel format.
- Water Budget Tool Data - This page explains the source of data and allows you to find the peak watering month for your zip code.
- Get help determining what to plant in your area.
- Find a pro to help you with a high performing irrigation system.