University of Nevada Las Vegas
Tier2-5: Weather-Informed Irrigation

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas uses a computer based central irrigation control program by Rainbird called Maxicom. From a single computer, or central control, UNLV generates vast water savings by scheduling, monitoring and controlling over 50% of our irrigation equipment at locations throughout the campus. Saving water is most readily accomplished by using the system's weather (ET) based scheduling capability. ET stands for evapotranspriation and is a value (inches or centimeters) that measures how much water is lost to evaporation and how much water is used by plants. ET goes up with warmer weather and lowers with cooler weather. Plants are watered based on their needs (which is driven by weather conditions). Maxicom retrieves its ET values on a daily basis from our weather station located n the north side of campus. Maxicom pulls in these values and processes them into irrigation schedules and communicates the schedules to all irrigation devices. Flow sensors are used to prevent flooding by automatically shutting down a station or series of stations if an excess of water flow is detected (for example a valve stuck on or a break in a line). This equipment is used in the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs building among other locations.