With the exception of several showpiece parks, the rationing will likely mean browner playing fields across O‘ahu.

Watering will not be severely reduced at Kapi‘olani and Ala Moana parks, however, because of their proximity to tourist-laden Waikiki, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa.

And two of the island’s busy sports parks — the Waipi‘o Peninsula Soccer Complex and Central O‘ahu Regional Park in Waipahu — do not tap into island wells for irrigation, Costa said. They should remain green because one draws from a stream and the other uses recycled, nondrinking water.

The city’s effort, which is drawing praise from the board, is in response to a request in June to O‘ahu’s 100 biggest water users to participate in voluntary cutbacks.

The drought and an increasingly heavy demand for water this year lowered well levels and worried water board officials.

On Saturday, the board made a similar request to the public, hoping for a 10 percent reduction in water use. The voluntary program asks users to limit irrigation to only Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays — something the city is having trouble with because of staffing and overtime issues, Costa said.

Bill Balfour, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, was to meet today with Clifford Jamile, the board’s manager and chief engineer, to discuss an exception to the schedule, Costa said.

Balfour’s cutback of water use was based largely on weekday reductions, Costa said. If the board’s schedule is inflexible, the city would further limit watering to only Tuesdays and Thursdays, she said.

Balfour is confident he can revive brown parks once the board lifts any restrictions, Costa said.

“Parks that have Bermuda grass are very resilient and with normal irrigation it would probably come back within a couple of weeks,” Costa said.

The city has 6,417 acres of parks, botanical gardens and large medial strips. Eighty percent of them require watering and most of those are not automated.

Water board spokeswoman Denise DeCosta said giving the city an exception to the Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday schedule would send a confusing message to the public.

“If you make exceptions, it messes it all up and it undermines the effectiveness of it,” DeCosta said.

She told the board’s engineers to try and reduce use on Mondays because that is the peak use day of the week.