California State is urging its residents to limit watering to once a week in order to meet the 25% cutback goal. Other water districts will limit watering to two to three times a week.

The rule will be implemented to more than 400 individual water districts, where the mandatory cutback will be enforced. Water wasters will be charged with a fine of $500, said officials.

The California Water Resources Control Board will oversee, and could fine water districts up to $10,000 a day for lackluster conservation or enforcement

Gov. Jerry Brown also called for 50 million square feet of lawns that has to be replaced with anything from mulch to rocks to artificial turf.

Drought-conscious Folsom homeowner Michelle Kwek said, “We had already taken out our front lawn a few years back, so we knew it was just a matter of time before we did the backyard, too”.

It has been told that the cutbacks could be implemented by state and local water agencies, and will affect consumers and business throughout the most populous US state. But farmers, who are using less water for irrigation, will be exempted.

Brown at a state snow monitoring station in the Sierra Nevada community of Phillips near Lake Tahoe said that the Californian residents are presently standing on dry ground and he said they should be standing on five feet of snow.

He further said the move could save nearly 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months.

Brown said he was ordering 50 million square feet of lawns across the state be replaced with drought-tolerant landscaping and the creation of a consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with newer, more water-efficient models.