The coveted Water Star Award was presented to Amy Vickers by the Alliance for Water Efficiency at the October 2014 Water Smart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas. The annual award recognizes individual excellence in water efficiency. Vickers was honored for over 25 years of achievements in the water efficiency field, including for her role as having written and spearheaded the inclusion of the nation’s first water efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures in the 1992 U.S. Energy Policy Act, which has saved trillions of gallons of water in the United States over the past twenty years. “Amy has been an unfailing champion for water conservation, wise and efficient water use,” said Mary Ann Dickinson, President and CEO of the Alliance for Water Efficiency upon presentation of the award.  “Her research, analysis, advocacy and leadership has advanced the field of water conservation and educated thousands of water conservation professionals.”

Water analytics are increasingly an important component of water use and demand forecasting projects, particularly for water utilities and large companies and organizations. Want to learn more about water analytics to help understand customer and facility water use? Check out AWWA’s new guidance document, “A Guide to Customer Water-User Indicators for Conservation and Financial Planning” by Amy Vickers, Mary Wyatt Tiger, and Shadi Eskaf (Oct. 2013). It is free for AWWA members. Contact us if you would like more information about the Guide and other studies that Amy has done on this topic.

“Deerfield Academy’s Million Gallon Challenge,” presented at AWWA’s annual conference in Boston in June 2014, describes a two-phase water use efficiency evaluation completed by AVA in 2013 that is now delivering the school some impressive water demand reductions. Here are a few slides from the presentation. Contact us if you would like a pdf of the entire presentation. Continue reading →