Water Use It Wisely is a Phoenix website that helps people save water in an area of the country where drought is an urgent issue. Increasingly, water is an urgent issue no matter where you live. Earlier this month, the National Resources Defense Council reported that one-third of all counties in the lower 48 states face a high risk of water shortages due to climate change.

At Water Use It Wisely, you can download 100 Ways to Conserve, from

#2: When washing dishes by hand, don’t let the water run while rinsing. Fill one sink with wash water and the other with rinse water to

#108: When you have ice left in your cup from a take-out restaurant, don’t throw it in the trash, dump it on a plant.

Tip # 15 can be ordered in 22″ x 28″ poster size:

#15: Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway and sidewalk and save water every time.

“We want to promote popular, easily implementable water-saving tips,” Kathleen Orazio explains. “Often this is common sense. We live in the Phoenix area and there are lots of resorts and golf courses. You can imagine how much water they use to keep all that looking good! But here we are in the Sonoran Desert! So we created #15, to sweep your driveway instead of hosing it off. Really, it’s almost just stop and take two seconds to think about it.” Already the cities of Phoenix, Mesa, and Glendale, Arizona, have displayed it at bus stops, kiosks, and office locations.

Ready to make a few smart water-related decisions at your house? You’ll find plenty of great ideas on your personal dashboard at Practically Green. You can find out why installing a low-flow faucet (10 points) is so effective, and how to do it. You can decide to run the washing machine only when you have a full load (20 points). And, yes, you can get points for using a broom instead of a hose to clean the driveway!  Best of all, you’l learn how these simple actions all add up to significant health and savings for you and your family.