Does a turfgrass lawn use more water than it is worth?
As Canadian climatic conditions and lifestyles evolve, so do our lawns and gardens. In many urban areas, the traditional bluegrass lawn, a sea of green all summer long when well-watered, is disappearing. In order to conserve water, some homeowners are replacing their traditional lawn grasses with other ground cover plants.
According to some experts, replacing turf grasses may not achieve the homeowner's goal. Dr. Jim Beard, an internationally respected professor of turf grass physiology and ecology at Texas A & M University, said it is our decisions and specific cultural practices about lawn management, and not the plants themselves, that create a high water usage rate in lawns. Turf will efficiently use any volume of water that it receives. Dr. Beard argues that grass should be appreciated for its ability to conserve water and energy. "Perhaps one of the least recognized benefits of lawns is their ability to entrap and hold rainfall better than most surfaces, thereby reducing water loss by runoff and enhancing the potential for groundwater recharge," he says. "lawns are one of the most cost-effective means of trapping and holding surface water that may be carrying eroded soil and organic chemicals that enter sewers, streams, rivers and lakes."
Grass also has unique cooling capabilities; studies demonstrate that the surface temperature of actively growing turf grasses is 18 to 24 degrees Celsius cooler than that of bare soil. Cement, asphalt and stone surfaces absorb light energy and trap it, making those surfaces much warmer than turf.
Even lawns that are very brown in the stress of a summer drought will bounce back to green with regular rainfall. If you are able to provide minimal watering on a regular basis, the roots of a healthy turf will anchor soil and prevent erosion. The leaves can reduce the risk of fire spreading along the ground and will absorb some of the traffic and noise of urban living. As an added benefit, the lawn's growing processes remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release clean oxygen in its place.
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