Last October, as Bill Robertson knocked on doors in Okotoks in his successful campaign for re-election as mayor, he saw that many homeowners had replaced their lawns with less water-hungry landscaping. “I was on every doorstep in Okotoks this election, eight-and-half thousand of them,” he says, “and I saw some great lawns which are not lawns, but fancy colours of gravel.” Like most communities, Okotoks, just south of Calgary, was built beside water.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/kz4lbmc