Water usage down sharply in San Diego, shrinking city’s reliance on expensive imported supplies
San Diego’s vulnerability to water shortages and drought is shrinking significantly because residents and businesses are using less water and city officials are boosting the local supply. A new city analysis shows local water use dropped sharply from 81.5 billion gallons in 2007 to about 57 billion gallons in 2020, even though the city’s population has grown about 1 percent per year over that time. The new data has prompted city officials to revise downward long-term projections of local water use by about 20 percent compared to their estimates from 2015, the last time the city conducted such an analysis.