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Congratulations to Kevin Rocker, Enhancement Manager, for becoming a Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor (CLIA).  We are proud of his achievement and the professional skills he brings to the Conserve Team. 

What is the Importance of a CLIA?

An irrigation auditor performs a site evaluation, a detailed system inspection, and a system performance test.  Based on the results, auditors can make repair recommendations and develop a customized irrigation schedule to improve the efficiency of the system.  Often times these improvements result in less water consumption which not only saves money but also conserves a valuable, natural resource, reduces the amount of water lost below the root zone, reduces runoff, improves the appearance of the landscape with fewer dry or wet spots, and can also reduce fertilizer and chemical requirements.

CLIA Background

The landscape irrigation auditor program instructed by the Irrigation Association (IA) was developed from a program created by the Irrigation Training and Research Center at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo for the Water Conservation Office of the California Department of Water Resources.  The original program was developed using techniques that were used for the analysis of agricultural irrigation systems in the state of California.

Due to the extreme drought conditions in California in the mid-1980s, the auditor program was implemented in California in an effort to reduce landscape water consumption.  Large turf area sprinkler systems were evaluated and the information was used to recommend minutes of watering time for each station year round.  The resulting watering schedules were to help reduce the water requirements for cities.

In the early 1990s the IA Certification Board began the Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditors training and testing program.  As improved auditing techniques were developed, the program has been revised and modified several times over the past years.