Increasing demands and costs of supply have spurred a growing desire to use resources more efficiently. Federal, state, and local agencies have adopted regulations and policies requiring conservation of resources, particularly water and energy. California has been very active, particularly since the 1976-1977 drought, in water conservation activities. This paper describes a number of water conservation projects in which the authors have participated, discusses the reasons the projects were pursued, and briefly presents the results of each in an effort to answer the question: Do we need water conservation? Because the audience at this conference is primarily composed of representatives of urban utilities, the discussion is limited to urban water systems.