Comprehensive Assessment Methodology for Urban Residential Rainwater Tank Implementation

Abstract

Rainwater tanks are increasingly being implemented as part of the integrated urban water management paradigm where all sources of water, including potable, stormwater and recycled, are considered eligible to contribute to the urban water supply. Over the last decade or so, there has been a rapid uptake of rainwater tank systems in urban areas, especially in Australian cities, encouraged through financial incentives, but more importantly, from change in residential building codes effectively mandating the installation of rainwater tanks. Homes with rainwater tanks in Australian cities have increased from 15% to 28% over six years to 2013. These building codes specify certain rainwater tank specifications to achieve a stated rainwater use, and hence potable water savings. These specifications include minimum rainwater tank size, minimum connected roof area, plumbing for internal supply for toilets and washing machines, and external supply for garden watering. These expected potable water savings from households are often factored into regional strategic water planning objectives. Hence if rainwater tanks do not deliver the expected saving due to sub-standard installation and/or poor maintenance, it will have an adverse impact on the regional water plan in the longer term. In this paper, a methodology to assess the effectiveness of a government rainwater tank policy in achieving predicted potable water savings is described and illustrated with a case study from South East Queensland, Australia. It is anticipated that water professionals across the globe should be able to use the same methodology to assess the effectiveness of similar rainwater policies, or indeed any other distributed water saving policy, in their local planning communities.

Haitians’ willingness to invest in rainwater infrastructure

“…These results are not different from findings of research conducted in Australia, where it is common to use rainwater in urban households for drinking and cooking purposes, sometimes without disinfection treatment (Gardner & Vieritz 2010). Over the 6 years to 2013, home rainwater increased from 15 to 28% in Australia (Sharma & Gardner 2020).…”

A Systematic Literature Review on Rainwater Harvesting Implementation Fidelity

“…Scholars in the built environment field have not yet explored the factors in implementation studies, which has affected the definitive source for RWH implementation research. The implementation of RWH is generally poor and this has to be addressed to benefit the environment at large [14,15]. Thus, RWH implementation research could draw on existing frameworks and reporting requirements from other fields, to ensure that it is not underreported and under indexed, as alarmed by Rycroft-Malone & Burton [4].…”

“…One plausible explanation is that implementation strategies are difficult to evaluate and may coexist as a support to evidence-based interventions, making them an undesirable subject to address [11,12]. In conjunction to this, there is an absence of research evaluating RWH implementation strategies, despite previous research [13][14][15] revealed that they are poor. This indicates that research into fidelity by focusing on strategies is critical in RWH implementation.…”

Dual-system concept for stormwater control in commercial centre

“…This reduced the burden of urban drains Buildings that are equipped with stormwater tanks are common practice in capturing stormwater. These are reported in the past studies, for example, Araujo et al [15] had anticipated the significance of the rainwater harvesting tank within a building; Lestari et al [16] had illustrated the benefits of having an underground tank in a school complex; Sharma and Gardner [17] maintained that building codes in Australian had increased the installation of stormwater tanks across Australian cities.…”