Harvesting Rainwater for Environment, Conservation & Education: Some Australian Case Studies

A. Chanan, S. Vigneswaran* and J. Kandasamy Faculty of Engineering, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia. (Email: s.vigneswaran@uts.edu.au) *Corresponding author Tel.: +612-9514 2641, Fax: +612-9514 2633, Email: s.vigneswaran@uts.edu.au

Abstract: This paper briefly charts the development of rainwater harvesting in Australia. It examines how rainwater harvesting can be incorporated into decentralised water systems to offer sustainable water management of the future. Rainwater harvesting projects implemented in Kogarah Local Government Area in Sydney range from surface runoff harvesting at a regional scale to rainwater tanks. Several of these projects are presented as case studies. The impact rainwater tanks can have on the urban hydrology including the impact on urban flooding is discussed. The hydraulic modeling shows that while rainwater harvesting has some impact on the peak discharges within the catchment, the impact on the peak flood levels is small. It would not result in any significant reduction in the flood damages. The major impact that a rainwater tank has is on the volume of the stormwater runoff.

Keywords: Rainwater harvesting, rain jars, implementation, review, Thailand

1. Introduction Rainwater harvesting is defined as the practice of collecting water from surfaces on which rain falls, and storage of this water for later use. The concept of rainwater harvesting is believed to have been in practice for thousands of years. Indians learnt this water arithmetic as far back as 5,000 years. The city of Dholavira of the Indus Valley civilisation was harvesting rainwater in the dry Thar Desert of western India (Kumar, 2000). Some of these practices continue to remain in use even today. According to Pandey et al (2003), the antiquity of rainwater harvesting as an adaptation to climate change is intrinsic. In a fluctuating Holocene climate, rainwater harvesting in response to climate extremes enhanced the resilience of human society. Archaeological investigations have unearthed examples of rainwater harvesting world over, including ancient reservoir technology developed by the Mayan people, large-scale earthworks in Bolivian Amazon, and check-dams in Wadi Sana in United Arab Emirates dating back 15,000 years (Pandey et al, 2003). The knowledge of the historical adaptive processes that are still functional is important to deal with and global climatic changes, and rainwater harvesting is one such process

1.1 Rainwater Harvesting in Australia Significance of rainwater harvesting in the Australian historical and cultural context, can be gauged from the fact that during the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games 2000, we proudly displayed hundreds of galvanised iron water tanks. Given the vital role rainwater tanks have played over the years in quenching Australias thirst, it was quite appropriate to celebrate them in such an important way.

Australian reliance on the rainwater harvesting was so deeply entrenched that the Government of the day had to convince long and hard to make people connect to town water supply system during the late 19th century (Coombes, 2002). In fact, citizens in the Hunter valley in New South Wales refused to connect to the town water supplies and pay for water from those supplies. According to Coombes (2002), the Walka water supply cost 350,000 to construct and 18,000 was needed every year to pay interest and operating expenses. In 1892 the local councils that administered the new permanent water supplies were in serious debt. The government did not have the power to force people to connect to mains water or to charge citizens whose properties were not connected. The reluctance of the community to part with their rainwater harvesting threatened the economic viability of the new water supply scheme. Consequently Government had to legislate mandatory fixed charges, which in turn ensured that citizens used mains water in preference to household rainwater tanks. A century on stormwater from urban catchments is now collected in street gutters and pits, and conveyed to nearest waterways via pipes. Rainwater tanks have been all but driven out of the major urban centres in Australia. In fact, by the 1990s the use of a rainwater tank was illegal in urban areas. Water Authorities actively discourage the use of rainwater tanks via stormwater drainage standards and informing citizens that they were illegal and dangerous (Coombes, 2002). Despite being the driest inhabited continent on Earth, most of Australian cities, which happen to be located along the coastline actually receive adequate amounts of precipitation each year to satisfy their various needs. For instance, Sydney generates 420GL of stormwater every year (Argent, 1995). With a water demand of about 660GL, rainwater could provide a potentially significant source of water for Sydney metropolitan area. Rainwater harvesting can significantly reduce drinking water consumption. 2. Rainwater Harvesting: A Soft Path for Water With the Industrial Revolution, the size of our cities has grown rapidly. Large amount of water needed and the sewage generated, as well as the increased stormwater from the vast urban areas requires a new management approach. Big pipe engineering approach - for bringing drinking water into the city and for removing wastewater and stormwater away from the city, became the standard water management technique (Newman, 2007). The resulting centralised system that we now inherit is based on sourcing large quantities of water from one location, adding a number of nutrients to it during its once-only use, and finally disposing the waste stream at another point location. It is now well acknowledged that sustainable water management of the future is significantly different from the traditional water management paradigm that focused on meeting the demand for water by augmenting supply and disposing wastewater and stormwater to prevent the spread of disease. Sustainable urban water systems need to focus on achieving a closed loop through initiatives such as rainwater harvesting and reuse. As highlighted in Figure 1, such an approach not only reduces the amount of water imported into the urban area, it also treats stormwater runoff and sewage as resource and cuts down on their wasteful discharge into waterways (Stenkes et al, 2004).

Figure 1: Traditional versus Sustainable Urban Water Cycle Management (Stenkes et al, 2004).

3. Applications of Rainwater Harvesting According to Srinivas (2007) the feasibility of rainwater harvesting is highly dependent upon the amount and intensity of rainfall in an area. Furthermore, variables such as catchment area, catchment imperviousness ratio, opportunities for reuse also influence this decision. The following section briefly discusses rainwater harvesting projects implemented in Kogarah Local Government Area in Sydney that range from surface runoff harvesting at a regional scale to rainwater tanks.

3.1 Constructed Wetland: Harvesting for the Environment Construction wetlands provide an ideal mechanism to improve the quality of stormwater runoff that drains into the local waterways, in urban catchments where natural wetland systems have been lost due to pressures of urbanisation. Constructed wetlands also enhance the ecological, recreational as well as aesthetic value of the river and foreshore public open space. At Kogarah, a constructed wetland was implemented at Moore Reserve. The wetland has a surface area of 9,500m2 and combined with the Gross Pollutant Trap (GPT) it is able to treat 95% of all stormwater from the catchment. The wetlands volume is approximately 6,120 cubic metres, its depth ranges from 2m in the northern end to 0.5m in the macrophyte zone in the middle. The wetland and filtering system treats stormwater from surrounding residential, industrial and commercial areas to remove litter, nutrients, heavy metals and sediments. Stormwater enters the wetland near an island that slows down the flow of the water. The wetland is designed to be 2m deep here so that sediment with heavy metals attached can settle and remain undisturbed. Water moves slowly through the wetland into a shallower section (0.5 metres) filled with reeds and sedges (macrophytes). These plants take up nutrients from the stormwater and use them for plant growth. This shallow zone has the most aquatic life and includes turtles, invertebrates, birds and frogs. The final deep section of the wetland allows sunlight and wind to continue to break down bacteria that remains in the water. Cleansed water then flows to an outlet pipe and into Oatley Bay. Analysis of stormwater water quality entering Oatley Bay at Moore Reserve show dramatic improvements since the project was implemented. In 1996, water samples show high levels of

heavy metals such as copper (5 micrograms per litre) and zinc (55 micrograms per litre). By 2003 copper measured just 2 micrograms per litre, while zinc was 11 micrograms per litre.

Photo 1: Aerial view of Moore Reserve Wetland

3.2 Town Square Development: Harvesting for Reuse The Kogarah Town Square Redevelopment Project provides a best practice example of rainwater collection, treatment and reuse by: collecting rainwater and re-using it for low quality uses such as toilet flushing and carwashing; reducing the demand of mains water through water conservation and efficiency; and managing the quantity and quality of stormwater through capture, re-use and treatment within the landscaped areas.

Figure 2: Schematic for Kogarah Town Square Site Water Cycle (Kogarah Council, 2003)

According to Hermann & Schmida (1999), rainwater usage is most effective for the drainage system when it is applied in multi-storey buildings and densely populated districts. It is because the specific roof surface per head is low, and therefore the total roof runoff can be consumed. Kogarah Town Square is a medium density development, where 85% of the rain that falls on the site is collected for onsite reuse. When compared to water consumption rate for a typical development of similar size, annual water consumption rate at Kogarah Town Square is approximately 42% less (Kogarah Council, 2003).

3.3 Rainwater Tank in School: Harvesting for Education At a decentralised level, Kogarah Municipal Council is the first local government authority in Sydney to promote the use of rainwater tanks in all the schools within the council area. This project involved continuous simulation modelling to determine the appropriate tank volumes, based on factors including water usage patterns and available roof surface areas for harvesting. The major outcome of the project was the installation of rainwater tanks in all 22 schools in the Kogarah Council area. 20 of the 22 schools connected their rainwater tanks to toilets and the remaining two schools used the water for irrigation purposes only. Connecting rainwater tanks to toilet flushing maximised the reduction of potable water use for the majority of schools that participated in the project (Chanan et al, 2008). Optimal rainwater tank size for each school was determined keeping in mind their water usage patterns as well as known constraints on the down-stream stormwater network in the vicinity of each school, using the continuous simulation model (Beecham, 2004). Table 1 Required Tank Sizes to Achieve 50 and 70% Supply Security

Once appropriate tank sizes were determined for each school, Council officers undertook an analysis of the water consumption patterns of each school within the LGA. Council staff with the experts from the University of Technology, Sydney also conducted site visits at all of the schools that were meeting the target. These visits were to identify potential sites for installation of the tanks, from where water could be used for toilet flushing as well as irrigation. Once these sites were confirmed with the relevant schools, Council engaged contractor carried out the installation. In addition to installation of rainwater tanks, a complementary water education program was also developed and is currently being implemented. Education program included carrying out water

audits, tank decorating initiatives as well as the development of a Water Conservation Action Plan. The major outcome of the project was the installation of Rainwater tanks in all 22 schools in the Kogarah Council area. The table below summarises the size of the tank and connections received by each school in the program. According Chanan et al (2008), numerous outcomes have been achieved from the Rainwater Tanks in Schools project, not only in water savings but also in fostering water conservation behaviour within the pupil population.

3.4 Rainwater Tanks & Urban Flooding Thompson et al (2005) analysed the effect of various rainwater re-use options on flooding in the Beverley Park Catchment, in Kogarah. A number of different re-use scenarios were modelled using design flood events including the 1 year and 5 year Annual Recurrence Interval events. XPRAFTS was used to define the hydrology of the catchment. The hydraulic modelling was conducted using the SOBEK 1D/2D modelling software. One of the rainwater harvesting options investigated in the project was to model the use of rainwater tanks in each of the single detached residential dwellings within the catchment. A 5kL tank was assumed for each of the dwellings within the catchment. Considering the dynamics of volume change in the rainwater tank due to water re-use, a 5kL tank on average would have only 1.5kL available for stormwater retention in a rainfall event (per com, Beecham 2004). It was assumed that there was no airspace available in the tank for stormwater detention. The rainwater tanks were modelled in the XPRAFTS software (Thompson et al, 2005).

Figure 4: Water consumption of Monitored Schools Pre and Post Rainwater Tanks The rainwater tanks were modelled as an additional initial loss to the impervious portion of the catchment, as this was the best representation of the area sourcing the rainwater tanks. To

determine this initial loss, the volume of the available retention volume in the rainwater tanks (determined from the number of dwellings) was distributed over the impervious area of the catchment. The outputs from the XP-RAFTS model were then used as inputs to the SOBEK 1D/2D hydraulic model. This model is capable of modelling the hydraulic behaviour of the catchment more accurately, and consequently the impact of the rainwater tanks on flooding within the catchment.

Figure 5. Impact of rainwater tanks on Peak Flows from Main Channel Outlet According Thompson et al (2005), the modeling results show that there are some benefits achieved from rainwater tanks in terms of peak discharge. This benefit decreases as the duration of the storm increases. The hydraulic model shows that while there is some impact on the peak discharges within the catchment, the impact on the peak flood levels is small. It would not result in any significant reduction in the flood damages. The major impact that a rainwater tank has is on the volume of the stormwater runoff. While peak flows are not necessarily impacted, the runoff hydrograph is delayed due to the presence of the rainwater tanks. 4. Conclusion Sustainable water management of the future is expected to be significantly different from the traditional water management paradigm that focused on meeting the demand for water by augmenting supply and disposing wastewater and stormwater to prevent the spread of disease. Sustainable urban water systems need to focus on achieving a closed loop through initiatives such as rainwater harvesting and reuse. Case studies of rainwater harvesting projects implemented in Kogarah Local Government Area in Sydney that range from surface runoff harvesting at a regional scale to rainwater tanks were presented. The lessons learnt from these projects have been incorporated into Kogarah Councils Water Management Policy that encourages rainwater harvesting for all new developments as a water conservation and water quality improvement mechanism. 5. Acknowledgements Authors would like to acknowledge the support from Sydney Water Corporation and the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation for supporting these innovative rainwater harvesting projects. We would also like to thank Dr Simon Beecham, of University of South Australia; current and former staff from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS, current and former staff from the Assets & Services Division of Kogarah Municipal Council for their

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