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Water: Residential Water Use

 
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Why is this a Climate Smart indicator?

  • One of our Bold Goals is to reduce residential water consumption per person by 30 percent from 2009 levels by 2030.   

  • Support the State’s Water Supply Strategy, which aims to reduce annual water demand in towns and cities to at least 500-thousand-acre feet by 2030

  • Reducing water usage helps ensure that we have a reliable water supply.   

  • In Santa Clara County, over half our water comes from far away sources such as the Sierra Nevada and the Sacramento Delta. If we use less water, we can import less, keeping more water in streams, rivers and lakes.   

  • Reducing water usage reduces energy used for pumping and treating water. This reduces greenhouse gas emissions.  

  • Reducing residential water usage can help to lower household water bills. 

What is the City doing to make progress on this indicator?

Completed

  • Evaluate Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technologies to allow residents to access real-time water usage data 

  • Publish Water Shortage Contingency Plan (June 2021) 

  • Declare a 15% water shortage and restrict outdoor watering to two days per week (11/30/21) 

  • Amend the City’s water efficient landscape ordinance to require drought-tolerant landscape design for new and rehabilitated landscapes and to make it easier for the City to declare water shortages and implement water conservation standards (adopted 5/3/22)

  • Completed AMI pilot study and evaluate pilot results (2022)

  • The Do-It-Yourself home energy and water savings toolkit can be checked out at a San José library and help residents save energy and water use in their home

In Progress / Ongoing

  • Maintain the City’s Water Efficiency webpage and provide water efficient messaging in five languages

  • Support legislative and regulatory items that further the City’s water conservation efforts 

  • Promote the Valley Water free online shopping cart feature in which San José residents can order water saving devices and literature to be sent directly to them at no cost 

  • Work with Valley Water and local water retailers to increase outreach efforts to San José residents with ways to save water and avoid a water shortage in San José 

  • Climate Smart Challenge and GoGreen Teams programs for San José residents, which encourage reducing water use

  • The Building Performance Ordinance’s Beyond Benchmarking component requires covered multifamily buildings that do not meet water efficiency standards to perform an audit, undertake retrocommissioning, or make water efficiency upgrades (2023-present)

  • Promote the WaterSmart online portal that allows residents (Muni Water customers) to monitor their water usage, compare consumption to other homes of similar size, receive leak notifications, and receive money-saving recommendations.

  • Select a consultant, secure funding and begin implementation of the AMI Project (expected launch date in Fall 2025).

  • Develop a set of recommendations for a Model Water Efficient New Development Ordinance (MWENDO), which would regulate water efficiency specifications for new buildings and complement existing Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (MWELO) for landscaping.

Planned

  • Expand water conservation online resources to eligible customers to allow access to historical water use, comparison with similar households, and advice for reducing water use 

Evaluating

  • Develop new municipal codes that further residential water conservation efforts

About the data

Sources

Data on annual total water use by residential customers of the San José Municipal Water System were provided by Municipal Water System staff for all years. 

2010, 2015, and 2020 values for residential water use were obtained from Urban Water Management Plans for the other two water retailers that serve San José residents, San Jose Water Company (SJWC) and Great Oaks Water Company. The amount of water sold in total by San Jose Water Company to residential customers was multiplied by 80 percent to calculate the amount of water supplied by SJWC within San José because approximately 80 percent of SJWC’s customers are within San José city limits. 

Water use by SJWC and Great Oaks Water Company residential customers for in between years was estimated by linearly interpolating between the available data points. Water use by SJWC and Great Oaks Water Company residential customers for years after 2020 was estimated by assuming that water use changed from year to year along the same trends as residential water use by San José Municipal Water System customers. 

The total amount of water sold by all three retailers to residential customers in San José per year was divided by the number of residents in San José and the number of days in a year to calculate residential water use per capita per day. 

Population data are from the California Department of Finance’s Demographics Unit (Table E-5). 

Limitations

Precise data on the number of SJWC customers located within San José city limits are not available. 

Actual residential water use figures for SJWC and Great Oaks Water Company are only available for every fifth year because water companies are only required to prepare Urban Water Management Plans every five years, and these plans do not provide consumption data for intervening years. 

Residential water use may have been unusually high in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place orders. 

Last updated

October 2025