Californians responded to the worst snowpack measurement on record and unprecedented drought restrictions by decreasing their water use 13.5 percent in April, regulators said Tuesday.
That's the second-best conservation achievement since state officials started closely tracking water use more than a year ago, but falls short of the 25 percent cuts that became mandatory for cities and towns on June 1.
Southern California cities including Los Angeles and San Diego continued to lag in conservation, cutting just 9 percent. The data show residents and businesses achieved the savings compared to the same month of 2013.
Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory cutbacks in April as the drought continues for a fourth consecutive year with a summer of hot and dry conditions ahead.
The State Water Resources Control Board will start tracking compliance this summer after assigning each community a water use reduction target of as much as 36 percent. The board is also tracking how local agencies crack down on water waste.
Only about a tenth of water departments, 43 out of 395, reported issuing any sort of penalties for water waste.
April was a wake-up call for California when surveyors found the water in the Sierra Nevada snowpack at its lowest level on record. The snowpack provides nearly a third of the state's water. That data and the lack of urgency regarding conservation among residents prompted the governor to demand mandatory cutbacks to make sure communities have enough water to get through the drought.
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The Sierra snowpack is important because the melting snow provides springtime runoff that flows into the state's major reservoirs.
While many agencies have enough water to avoid the brunt of the drought, some rural communities have seen wells run dry.
The shift to mandatory conservation followed lackluster savings, with water use slipping just 3 percent in February and 4 percent in March compared to 2013 levels.
Local water departments report how much water their residents and businesses use monthly.
