Storm Water Harvesting Project Planning

Running head: Storm water Harvesting
Project Planning
-Storm water Harvesting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Contents
Objective:...................................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background and Literature Review...........................................................................................4
Description and Scope:............................................................................................................14
Project Details:.....................................................................................................................14
Planning and Design:...........................................................................................................15
Design to introduce water into the landscape:.....................................................................15
Consultation and commitment with the community:...........................................................16
Important suggestions from the Fitzroy Garden Project Team:...........................................17
Equipment and Tools required.................................................................................................17
For the Study:.......................................................................................................................17
For the Project:.....................................................................................................................17
Gross Pollutant Traps (GPT):...........................................................................................17
Sedimentation Chamber:..................................................................................................18
Dual Tanks:......................................................................................................................18
Biofiltration Bed:.............................................................................................................19
Plants:...............................................................................................................................20
Pumps:..............................................................................................................................21
UV Filters:........................................................................................................................22
Irrigation System:.............................................................................................................22
Constraint if any.......................................................................................................................22

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Conclusion................................................................................................................................24
References:...............................................................................................................................25

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Objective:
The objective of this study is to plan a project on storm water harvesting, based on the
system used in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, Australia.
Introduction
All the freshwater in the world accounts for only about 2.5% of the total water on the
world, compared to 97% of saline water. Of this 2.5% freshwater, about 1.7% is trapped in
the form of ice, snow and glaciers, 0.5% in the form of moisture in soil or in the form of
groundwater, and all the lakes, rivers and swamps constitute 0.01% of the total water on this
planet. Fresh water is a vital natural resource, and essential component of an ecosystem, and
unpolluted, fresh water only accounts for about 0.004% to the total water content in earth
(Petersen et al. 2017). This makes freshwater a renewable, yet limited resource, which is
replenished in the process of the water cycle, in which water in the form of water vapour,
from all the water bodies form clouds and then returns as precipitate. However, the
consumption of water by humans is slowly exceeding the rate at which the water is
replenished, thus stressing the local environments and dwindling the supply of fresh water.
With the rise in population as well as per capita use of water, we have severely strained the
limited resources of fresh water. According to the World Bank, the interaction of four factors
related to freshwater reserves is the quality, quantity and volume of water, as well as the
timing of water. Stress on any of these factors further adds stress on the other factors, which
further affects the freshwater reserves. The process of eutrophication and water pollution are
few other factors that also add up to this stress. As a result, many areas are already facing
crisis in the availability of fresh water, and it is expected to the problems will continue to
exist and spread to other areas, if the current trend in water consumption continues. This can
have serious adverse effects on the population, as everything from sanitation; food production

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and overall public well being are dependent on the presence of clean and fresh water
(Lomborg 2018; Garcia-Moreno et al., 2014).
This highlights the importance of using strategies to improve the usage of fresh water,
and minimize the wastage of it. This also includes trying to find new ways of utilizing water
that usually goes to waste such as rainwater and storm water (Lampard et al. 2015). While
rainwater usually refers to only the water that lands on the roof during the rain, while storm
water is the collective rainwater water runoff from various sources such as roads, buildings,
hillsides, drains, and other urban environments like gardens, parks, fields or arenas (Garcia-
Moreno et al., 2014). In the process of rainwater harvesting, this runoff is collected,
accumulated, treated and purified, and stored for reuse. In Australia, Many different projects
have been set up and supported by the government in the harvesting of storm water. This also
allows reducing the ecological impacts of the increased consumption of fresh water,
providing the ability to reuse the water wasted as runoffs in rains (Coombes et al. 2016).
Background and Literature Review
Usage of storm water also comes with a significant concern regarding the safety of the
re-usage of the water. Since the water is collected from runoffs from many types of
impervious surfaces such as roads, drains or other urban structures, they can likely to contain
a lot of pollutants (Knight 2017; Nnadi et al. 2015; Mbanaso et al. 2016; Reeve et al. 2015).
This makes necessary the process of treating and purifying the water properly before being
reused. The Environmental Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) provides guidelines to
establish the best practices for protecting public health and environment and managing the
risks associated with storm water use, and can be used as the basis of developing and
managing storm water usage (nepc.gov.au 2018; agriculture.gov.au 2009). The Fitzroy

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gardens also provides valuable insights into the planning of storm water harvesting system,
which will be followed in this proposed project.
Several studies have highlighted the uses of storm water harvesting process. Nnadi et
al. (2015) studies the composition of the storm water, and its usability in irrigation, and found
that storm water meets the quality requirements to meet the standards of irrigation. This
shows that storm water harvesting system can easily be used for supplying or supplementing
irrigation water. However, as Nnadi et al. also pointed out that care must be taken not to let
the water enter the natural water resources, since it can lead to eutrophication of the water
resource, owing to the hydrocarbons present in the water. Studies by Hoban et al. (2015) also
suggested that storm water harvesting has a great potential as an alternate source of supply of
fresh water, since it is relatively abundant, often available in close proximity to urban needs
and if not harvested can even cause environmental harm. This shows a dual advantage of
storm water harvesting, that is 1) Providing an alternative and dependable source of
freshwater, especially in urban areas and 2) Protecting the environment from the adverse
effects of the storm water by controlling its flow. Khan et al. (2016) studied the usability of
storm water in dairy industry, and through four years of research, they found that productivity
of daily farms can also be increased by the reuse of storm water after proper treatment of the
storm water. Such a conclusion was also supported by Fyfe and Hagare (2015) who also
proposed that managing the runoff and effluents from a dairy farm and sheds in a two pond
treatment and storage process can help to improve the handling of manure solids, control
levels of salt in the effluent, and thus improve the recovery rates of the nutrient. Harvesting
the rainwater can increase the freshwater catchment as well as improve the productivity of the
farm. Benefits of storm water harvesting in urban areas have been studied by Coombes et al.
(2016), whose study showed that sustainable buildings and households function as an
integrated system to provide a synergistic and accumulative benefits towards the conservation