FURI | Fall 2018

Effect of Drought Policies on Los Angeles Water Demand

From 2007 to 2017, California experienced two major droughts that required governmental action to decrease water demand. The purpose of this project was to isolate and explore the effects of these policy changes on water use, and to see how they interact with hydroclimatic variability. Temperature and precipitation data were interpolated and aggregated, and a timeline of policy changes was coded. These coded policies were brought into a multiple linear regression model to test their effect on water demand during 2000-2018. Clearly identifying effective policy traits will inform future policymaking in cities aiming to conserve water.