[hosh]

I used to get so mad about people growing lawns here in Phoenix until I discovered that Burmuda grass will tenaciously grow with little irrigation, and that some kind of vegetation is better for water retention in soil than bare dirt.

As I mentioned in my longer comment elsewhere, Arizona is seismically stable, and fabs don’t need specialized structures when using advanced process nodes.

The biggest misuse of water resources and poor land management comes from our conventional, commercial farming practice. Healthy, living soil can do a lot ecologically including water conservation, but we farm in a way to continually deplete soil.

Changing how residential homeowners do landscaping can help as well.

[sumtechguy]

I switched out my whole yard to zoysia (which is one of those creeping vine grasses like Bermuda). I picked it over Bermuda because it grows in thicker. I went from watering at least once a week to maybe once or twice a year if at all. That is in a area with an ok amount of rain.

I liked this type of grass as it grows relatively slowly which means about half the amount of mowing needed to be done. Low water (less than Bermuda), kills most weeds (less pesticides and weed killers), less mowing, those are the upsides. Downsides are turns yellow in October and does not turn green until the end of april (not HOA friendly), and like most creeping vine grasses is invasive and hard to get rid of if you do not like it, it also grows very poorly in shaded areas. Aggressive trimming is also needed when it reaches walkways, streets, driveways, and the side of your house.

I also spent a good amount of time building up a decent bed for the grass to grow in with mulching and proper aeration. Another thing I did was to make sure I had a good mix of the correct type of insects, moss, worms, and transplanted from local areas potting soils for other bits in the soil, trying to keep area and the type of grass in mind. As the original builder had scraped off the good stuff, leaving me with clay and rocks and rye grass, then took it to another site before I bought the place. This helped tremendously with the soil. Though I could have done better on my homework with that.

Depending on where you live, what sort of rain you get, and the soil types, this can be a 1 year job or a 10 year job. It really takes time to do.

[bcrosby95]

It also helps with the heat island effect.

But yeah, there's lots of different types of grasses that are OK to have in arid climates. But most lawns in my region (socal) aren't these special grasses. Subterranean irrigation can help too.