University of Nevada Las Vegas
Tier2-4: Xeriscaping

The Xeric Garden is a prime example of how drought-tolerant plants and a water efficient irrigation system may be allied to conserve water, yet create an attractive landscape. In addition to the Xeric Garden, xeriscaping principles are employed as a primary landscape design strategy throughout the 341 acres of the main campus. All new construction is landscape with drought tolerant plants and the university is currently aggressively removing turf and replacing it with xeriscaping. In the last five years, the university has reduced turf by 200,584 square feet, which has an estimated water savings of over 9,000,000 gallons and over $20,000 annually. Turf reduction efforts began in 1995, but increased significantly since 2003. While our Drought Response Plan needs to be updated on our website, UNLV has significantly reduced turf and replaced it with drought tolerant xeriscaping: http://facilities.unlv.edu/landscape/droughtplan.html.