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Following Water Conservation Month observed in April by many parts of US, May is celebrated with Water Awareness Month in the State of California and other places. These awareness campaigns focus on highlighting the essential role water plays in daily life, promoting conservation, reducing water footprints, and preventing water pollution before the dry summer months begin. A parallel campaign throughout May is National Water Safety Month, focusing on raising awareness of water competency and safety issues with water environment.
In the case of California, with the difficult challenges of clean water supply, in the early 1980s the California Department of Water Resources initiated Water Awareness Month (WAM) to promote the wise and efficient use of California’s most precious natural resource: Water. Setting up the awareness campaign in May is intentional. As spring gives way to summer, the water demand typically increases across the state, from urban homes and gardens to farms and recreation areas. May is therefore a critical time heading into the summer to educate and inspire Californians to be thoughtful about how we use water and protect the resource.
While the State designate May as WAM, local utilities and water agencies, especially for those in drought-prone areas, carry out the campaign with actional programs to encourage local residents to adopt water-smart habits, such as watering outdoors less, planting drought-tolerant gardens, and taking shorter showers. Some local utilities host art contests and educational events to teach the community about these practices.
The Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (Upper Water) is one of such water agencies in Southern California, and its mission is to deliver safe, clean, and reliable water, championing sustainability, and community engagement in its service territories covering part of the City of Arcadia where Arcadia Ecohome, my personal resident is located in. As part of its WAM activities, Upper Water its Residential Plant Voucher Program for its residents, and the key Program objective is to incentivize residents to transform their landscapes with drought-tolerant plants and develop water-efficient gardening practices.
Luckily I was approved as one of the qualified residents to participate in the 2026 program and received a voucher redeemable for up to $250 worth of approved plants to help the transformation of the Arcadia Ecohome Microforest’s food forest into climate-appropriate and water-efficient landscapes. As a program participant, I carefully reviewed the program’s Qualifying Plant List which contains useful information for plant selection and helps to raise public awareness of locally suitable plants. We tree planters and foresters at CIEDM thus planned a local grassroots event to take part in the celebrations of WAM 2026 with tree planting and a social media campaign,
Pineapple guava is on the pre-approved list for choice due to its merits of being California friendly, drought and fire resistant. This means the trees can easily grow with resiliency. In mid-May we acquitted the plants from a local nursery and on Friday May 22, the UN designated International Day for Biological Diversity, we planted the two seedlings next to each other in the ground, as shown in the attached picture, and officially introduced a new plant species to the forest. In the last week of May, we have focused on campaign engagements by online posting to raise public awareness of WAM and the CIEDM event.