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Smart Irrigation Control The mission of Friends of Balboa Park is to preserve Balboa Park’s legacy for future generations through park-wide projects. Challenges • Significant amount of manual labor required to turn irrigation on and off • Very time-consuming and costly • Some landscape under-watered and even more over-watered • Some plant health suffered; erosion occurred • Wasted water and money for it Current and Future Outcomes • Achieved large savings in labor hours-- For xxample, labor hours for shutoffs is 1/10 of what it was before • Reduced water usage • Reduced damage to plants and soil • Expanded hours of passive use within the park for the public • Next desired phase – investigate and implement more of the system’s features for even further savings and benefits Solution • Installed smart irrigation control system that commu- nicates with a weather station located in Balboa Park • Chose the Toro Sentinel system • Controlled by a central computer system which adjusts based on real time data received by the weather station • 60 controllers in the park: each has beetween 24-48 watering zones • Staff equipped with hand-held devices for local control
