Indoor residential water use in American homes has fallen 44 percent over three decades, as more efficient fixtures and appliances allow people to perform the same daily tasks with far less water.

Peter Mayer, principal engineer at WaterDM and lead author of all three Residential End Uses of Water studies, explains the findings from the Water Research Foundation’s 2026 update.

The study draws on billing records from 52 utilities across the United States and Canada, along with high-resolution data from more than 69,000 single-family homes and 1,000 multifamily homes.

Average indoor use in single-family homes dropped from 69.3 gallons per person per day in 1999 to 38.5 gallons in 2026.

Clothes washers produced the largest savings, cutting per-person water use from laundry by nearly 68 percent as federal energy standards pushed manufacturers toward more efficient machines.

Toilet use also declined sharply, with the average flush volume falling from roughly 3.5 gallons in 1999 to 1.84 gallons today.

These gains came primarily from national plumbing codes, energy standards, and better technology—not dramatic changes in household behavior.

The study examined multifamily housing for the first time and found that indoor use in small, individually metered buildings averaged 39.8 gallons per person per day, remarkably close to single-family demand.

With indoor efficiency beginning to approach practical limits, the next major opportunity lies outdoors, where changing landscapes and irrigation systems will be more expensive and take decades—but could help growing communities stretch existing water supplies much further.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Policy is becoming a water-supply tool in Colorado, as local governments use development codes, financing rules, and workforce requirements to reduce demand.

The second episode of Resilience in the Rockies examines how Broomfield, Denver Water, and Aspen are using governance to move conservation projects forward.

In Broomfield, where landscape irrigation accounted for an estimated 60 to 70 percent of annual water demand, a 2023 ordinance limits turf to 30 percent of new landscapes and caps outdoor use at 12 gallons per square foot annually.

The city developed the code after a WaterNow workshop and consultation with residents, elected officials, landscape architects, and homeowners associations.

Denver Water worked with WaterNow to finance more than half a billion dollars in replacements of customer-owned lead pipes—a type of private property investment that utilities traditionally could not place on their books or support with tax-exempt debt.

The resulting accounting and IRS approvals established a model Denver Water is now testing for turf removal and considering for watershed protection.

Aspen requires qualifying landscapes to meet water budgets, use efficient irrigation, and pass third-party audits because the headwaters community depends on snowpack and has only a few days of municipal storage.

To make the code enforceable in practice, WaterNow has helped Aspen train more than 100 landscape and irrigation technicians since 2018.

In each case, decisions about land use, public finance, and implementation are converting conservation goals into projects with measurable water-supply benefits.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Resilience in the Rockies is produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley.

Bringing research, prototyping, production, and shipping under one roof can turn American manufacturing into a faster engine for water innovation.

Rob Gledhill, CEO of Blue-White Industries, offers an inside look at how the Huntington Beach company develops and manufactures equipment used in water and wastewater treatment.

Blue-White produces chemical metering pumps, flow meters, instrumentation, and complete chemical-feed systems for drinking water, industrial processes, and wastewater facilities.

Its Studio 53 research department brings engineers together with production workers, customer-service representatives, returns specialists, and customers to sketch ideas and rapidly test prototypes.

When rising demand strained production, employees built a second assembly line in three days and doubled manufacturing capacity within two weeks.

The same emphasis on simplicity reduced one developing product from about 30 parts to 11 while cutting its production timeline from 16 weeks to one week or less.

Production 3D printers, CNC machines, injection-molding equipment, welders, and laser cutters allow the company to make many components in-house instead of waiting for parts delayed in international supply chains.

Engineers also follow products into the field to see how operators use, misuse, or modify them, turning those observations into the next round of design changes.

The tour shows that “Made in America” can be more than a label of origin. It can also be a manufacturing strategy built around speed, supply-chain resilience, institutional knowledge, and continuous improvement.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Milwaukee’s water technology economy traces back roughly 150 years to breweries, tanneries, and meatpacking plants that created sustained demand for pumps, valves, meters, and pipes.

In this episode, Karen Frost, executive director of The Water Council, explains how that industrial history continues to shape the city’s leading role in developing and scaling water technology.

Water-intensive industries created demand for specialized equipment, and over time southeastern Wisconsin developed a dense network of water technology manufacturers.

Two of its most prominent companies, A.O. Smith and Badger Meter, became central to organizing that network into The Water Council in 2009.

Today, the nonprofit connects established manufacturers with startups, utilities, researchers, and international companies seeking routes into the U.S. market.

The broader ecosystem includes the Freshwater Collaborative, which links water programs and internship opportunities across all 13 University of Wisconsin campuses.

The BREW 2.0 post-accelerator brings about 10 companies into the network each year, helping businesses with working technologies and early revenue strengthen their sales strategies and industry relationships.

Many of those groups also converge at the ReFRESH Summit, which has convened manufacturers, utilities, entrepreneurs, researchers, and students around emerging water issues since 2007.

Frost’s goal is to keep extending Milwaukee’s industrial foundation by helping water technologies developed locally and around the world find the partners needed to reach the market.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Colorado communities adapting to the long-term strain on water supplies in the arid West are turning one of their largest demands—the irrigated landscape—into a source of new supply, with this year’s historically low snowpack adding urgency to the work.

The first episode of Resilience in the Rockies travels from the Front Range to the Western Slope to examine how local leaders, utility managers, landscape professionals, and residents are replacing thirsty turf with landscapes designed for Colorado’s climate.

In Westminster, where about half of the city’s drinking water is used outdoors, a prominent transformation at City Hall is expected to save at least 1.5 million gallons annually while adding native grasses, pollinator habitat, walking connections, and climate-appropriate plants grown at the city’s own greenhouse.

At the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, nearly 3.5 acres of lightly used lawn have been redesigned with gathering areas, shade, native vegetation, and more precise irrigation—a project expected to conserve nearly 2 million gallons each year.

Longmont is using GIS mapping to locate nonfunctional turf and rank potential projects according to water savings, heat vulnerability, air quality, irrigation source, community value, and opportunities to coordinate with other construction.

That data-driven approach helped shape Kensington Park, where residents selected plants and amenities and helped install a water-wise garden around a neighborhood memorial previously damaged by irrigation.

In Eagle County, the Beyond Lawn program pairs rebates with on-site evaluations, irrigation guidance, customized conservation plans, and contractor or do-it-yourself resources, helping replace 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of turf and save about four acre-feet of water annually.

Together, the projects show that outdoor conservation succeeds when communities move beyond simply removing grass and create landscapes that are useful, attractive, locally appropriate, and supported over the long term.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Resilience in the Rockies is produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley.

Attend the Resilience in the Rockies event on October 20 in Denver.

A dozen years after the Flint water crisis galvanized national action on lead pipes, the United States has moved from scattered voluntary replacement efforts to a federal mandate to remove nearly all lead service lines by 2037.

Roya Alkafaji of the Environmental Defense Fund and Mason Hines of RESOLVE are members of the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, a coalition of 28 national organizations formed in 2016 to accelerate replacement and share lessons from communities doing the work.

The landscape has changed dramatically since then: federal rules required utilities to inventory their service lines, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dedicated $15 billion specifically to lead service line replacement, and the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements established the 2037 replacement deadline for most communities.

The number of publicly tracked replacement programs has also grown from 33 in 2017 to at least 270 today, while at least 20 communities have completed their programs.

The Collaborative recently recognized 16 programs and individuals for work ranging from community engagement and funding innovation to technical efficiency, including efforts in Milwaukee, Denver, Newark, Memphis, Greeley, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., and other communities.

Those examples matter because replacing the estimated four million lead service lines still in the ground will require different approaches in communities with vastly different resources, housing patterns, political environments, and infrastructure.

Alkafaji says reaching the 2037 deadline will depend heavily on three things: sustained community engagement, full replacements at no direct cost to property owners, and a local workforce large and skilled enough to do the work.

Hines points to another challenge looming as programs advance—the difficult final stretch of finding and replacing lines connected to absentee landlords, properties with uncertain records, and other hard-to-reach locations.

After a decade of building funding, regulations, inventories, and replacement programs, the next phase is increasingly about execution: applying what successful communities have learned while finding ways to reach the last lead pipes that are likely to be the hardest to remove.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Water utilities may never escape the need to triage infrastructure, but better data, design, and monitoring can reduce the constant churn of reactive responses.

In this episode, Jeff Bridge, Charis Klimas, and Brett Braganz of Oldcastle Infrastructure examine how utilities can move upstream of failure by choosing materials for the actual application, designing around workforce constraints, and verifying underground problems before committing crews and capital.

Bridge connects conveyance efficiency to both water and energy loss, explaining that deteriorated pipes force utilities to pump more treated water to deliver the same amount to customers.

He also argues that utilities increasingly need technical partners who can help match materials and products to the long-term demands of a project rather than simply supply a standard component.

Klimas explains how workforce shortages are changing infrastructure design, including the use of lighter equipment and automated meter-reading features that reduce field labor and allow staff to focus on more critical maintenance.

She also describes a broader shift from judging infrastructure mainly by upfront price toward considering durability, installation demands, maintenance needs, and total lifecycle cost.

Braganz outlines a four-stage digital approach: predict where failure is most likely, monitor and confirm the condition, plan the appropriate response, and move the work into execution.

That process can elevate a high-consequence water main serving a hospital, detect leaks before they surface, and show when an asset expected to fail is still performing well enough to remain in service.

The opportunity is to break the cycle of waiting for infrastructure to fail and then scrambling to respond—replacing guesswork with evidence, preserving assets that still work, and directing limited labor and capital where intervention will matter most.

Learn more about Oldcastle Infrastructure.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Digital systems, increasingly strengthened by artificial intelligence, are helping water utilities move from reacting to failures toward anticipating where infrastructure problems are most likely to occur.

Joshua Cantone of SUEZ explains how that shift is changing decisions about pipes, pumps, wells, treatment plants, and long-term capital investment.

Many utilities already collect large amounts of information through control systems, maintenance records, hydraulic models, and asset-management platforms.

The opportunity now is to connect those datasets and use AI-assisted analysis to identify which assets should be cleaned, repaired, rehabilitated, or replaced before they fail.

That preventive approach matters because emergency infrastructure repairs can cost two to three times more than work that is planned and coordinated in advance.

Digital planning tools can test thousands of infrastructure scenarios, helping utilities compare construction costs with the energy and operating expenses that accumulate over decades.

Cantone also argues that growing familiarity with tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot is making utility employees more comfortable with specialized AI designed for water operations.

Groundwater monitoring offers another example of the shift, with more frequent data helping operators track well performance, maintain production, and reduce the energy required for pumping.

Smart meters and digital network models are also giving utilities a clearer view of non-revenue water, which Cantone says remains near 20 to 30 percent at many U.S. utilities compared with roughly 5 to 15 percent in parts of the United Kingdom.

The next phase of digital water will depend on whether utilities can build reliable data systems—and enough operator trust—to use AI and other digital tools in everyday decisions.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Water utilities are rich in data but often struggle to turn decades of information into decisions that improve daily operations.

In this episode, Travis Wagner of Trinnex explains how utilities can connect fragmented information, preserve workforce knowledge, and introduce artificial intelligence without sacrificing accuracy or security.

Most utilities already collect extensive records through plant-control systems known as SCADA, geographic information systems, maintenance programs, and financial software.

The first step is not necessarily collecting more data, but identifying the utility’s goals and making the existing information accessible across systems.

That work is becoming more urgent as experienced operators retire and take decades of practical knowledge with them.

Operations manuals, standard procedures, and historical records can help preserve some of that expertise when they are digitized and made easier for employees to search.

Trinnex developed Raini as a utility-specific AI assistant that can answer questions about tasks such as maintaining a pump or backwashing a filter, while linking employees directly to the source document behind each response.

The system is designed to acknowledge when it cannot find an answer, while human experts test its responses and utilities update outdated procedures that the technology brings to light.

Wagner says the next generation of utility software could allow operators to request information, compare data, and generate dashboards through conversational tools, but progress should begin with clear governance, secure testing environments, and careful validation.

Learn more about Trinnex.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet.

PFAS regulation now has more moving parts, deadlines, and compliance pathways than ever, but the bottom-line advice for water utilities is simple: keep moving.

In this episode, Amanda Canida of Black & Veatch explains how utilities can navigate the regulatory complexity while advancing the treatment projects needed to meet federal drinking water standards.

Federal monitoring data indicates that roughly 10 percent of public water systems could be affected by the four-parts-per-trillion limits for PFOA and PFOS. Utilities can pursue cleaner water sources or blend supplies, but many are preparing to install treatment at a central plant or directly at an individual well.

EPA has proposed retaining the PFOA and PFOS limits while restarting the regulatory process for several other PFAS compounds and creating a streamlined exemption pathway for systems that need more time. Once that exemption rule is finalized, utilities would have 180 days to apply and may need interim measures such as temporary treatment, alternate water supplies, source-control planning, or public education.

The challenge is increasingly financial, as construction costs have risen and demand has grown for the equipment and treatment media needed to remove PFAS. Utilities are already slowing other capital projects, shifting money between priorities, and setting aside contingency funds to cover emerging treatment needs.

Canida outlines how desktop evaluations and laboratory testing can help systems compare granular activated carbon and ion exchange before committing to longer pilot studies. Utilities must also calculate when treatment needs to be operating—not merely completed—to keep their annual PFAS averages below the federal limit by April 2029.

The path forward is to pursue funding now, prepare customers for difficult decisions, and design treatment systems that can adapt as regulators address more of the thousands of PFAS compounds under review.

Learn more about PFAS from Black & Veatch.

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.