Improving Water Harvesting: A Methodology for Fitzroy Gardens

This report proposes a new methodology for implementing effective water harvesting in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, addressing the limitations of the current system. The existing stormwater harvesting system, while comprehensive, suffers from time inefficiencies and imbalanced purification depths. The proposed methodology involves dividing the initial water collection into two sections: Swales for planted land and PICP (Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavements) for concrete pavements. Furthermore, it suggests replacing the absorption bio-filtration with a Constructed Wetlands process to enhance filtering time and efficiency. The benefits of this new methodology include reduced latency, increased per-unit water harvesting, balanced purification, and the potential for producing water suitable for drinking purposes. The alteration aims to increase the overall performance and efficiency of the current stormwater harvesting process in Fitzroy Gardens, ensuring a more sustainable and effective water management system.

Methodology for implementing effective water harvesting in Fitzroy Gardens,
Melbourne
Needs of effective methodology:
The stormwater harvesting system of Fitzroy garden incorporated multiple water refreshment
procedure together sequentially. This system consists of 4 large size water storage and 6 small
size water storage. Small water storages help to store a small amount of water temporarily where
the large water storages store a large volume of water for the long-term procedure
(melbourne.vic.gov.au 2017). The whole system is capable of storing the rain or stormwater and
refine for further use. However, the particular set of mechanisms implemented in water
harvesting procedure of Fitzroy garden is little time-consuming. This implemental process has
implemented single phase absorption method to flitter the water both in initial stage as well as in
subsequent filtering process. In the initial step, the water is collected by draining and in the
second phase, the absorption and bio-filtering procedure is used. Therefore, the latency time
between input and output water flow is considerably high. It increases the overall time
consumption for processing the water to reuse and decrease the per unit water purification
(Kwon et al. 2014). The per unit water purification refers to the time required to execute the
whole harvesting process in a specific amount of time. Along with the time consumption, the
water collection procedure is not highly efficient. In current harvesting plan, the water collection
procedure follows the soft soil rainwater absorption. On the other hand, the water of pavement
areas is collected by ground inclination system. In this system, the water on concrete pavement is
collected by an underground pipeline. This water collection pipelines are ended at the main
initial storage unit (Cerff et al. 2012).

Therefore from this systematic water flow diagnosis, it is clear that the water collected from the
draining system get less purification along with the water collected from concrete pavements
while passing through the long-term processing. This imbalanced purification procedure has a
considerable amount of impact in the ultimate output of water harvesting and purification
procedure as well as final storing and distribution method. In this current water harvesting and
filtering procedure of Fitzroy garden, some necessary alterations of the operational methodology
are needed (Al-Ansari et al. 2012). The aim of this alteration is to increase the whole harvesting
and water purification system that can enhance the per unit water harvesting. At the same time, it
should balance the water purification depth for water collected from planted land as well as from
concrete pavement. Increase the affectivity, and implementation potentiality of output water is
the major target of this new alteration process.
Process for developing the methodology:
In the new method of purification, the initial water collection procedure will be divided into two
major sections. One water collection system will be responsible for collecting water from planted
land by Swales system, and other water collection system will receive water from the concrete
pavement by PICP system. Apart from that to increase the time efficiency in final purification
process absorption bio-filtration will be altered by Constructed wetlands process. These two
phase alteration can improve the overall efficiency of current stormwater harvesting and
purification procedure (Zakaria et al. 2012). The individual stages of systematic modification
have been described below:
Initially, the water will be collected from Swales and PICP process. In Swales process water will
not be directly drained from the exterior surface of the ground. In this system, the water will be
collected from natural soaking or primary bio-filtration procedure of the planted soil. The

maximum area of Fitzroy Park is covered with soft soil and grass cover land. Therefore this
method will collect the maximum amount of water. The main gravel line and many secondary
gravel lines will pass through the underground of this moist and soft soil covered land. On the
other hand, PICP will be used to filter the water collected from the exterior surface of the
concrete pavement at very initial stage (Rahman, Keane and Imteaz, 2012). Permeable
Interlocking Concrete Pavements or PICP is the main components or tools for executing this
filtering procedure. It needs a specific type of concrete material which has multiple layers for
filtering the rainwater. The 32% to 40% of blank space within internal concrete particle allow the
rainwater to be absorbed (Belmeziti, Coutard and de Gouvello 2013). This layer consists of sand,
loamy sand, sandy loam, loam, silt loam, sandy clay loam, clay loam, sandy clay silt clay and
clay sequentially. These materials will make the four-stage basic filtration process that can
purify the 40 to 50% of polluted suspended material at the very initial stage.
In the second stage, the water will be filtered in a sedimentation plant instead of the Gross
pollutant trap. In the conventional GPT the major processing of the water is the separation of
solid and comparatively large, visible material from the water. Mainly plastics, paper, metal foils
and other solid particles are separated from the main water supply in this section. However, after
implementing the Swale and PICP technique of water collection there will be no need for the
solid material separation process (Ward, Memon and Butler, 2012). Therefore, in this second
stage the water will be stored in the sedimentation chamber where the sedimentation will
separate suspended particulate matters or microscopic particles.
After the sedimentation procedure, the water will be transferred to a large chamber. In this
chamber, the water will be stored for a long time for pumping preparation. The pumping system
will be connected with this chamber to transfer the water for Constructed wetlands process. The

noticeable fact is the currently used flower bed bio-filtration will be replaced by this method to
increase the filtering time. Fitzroy garden has lots of pools and swamp lands to conduct this
procedure. In Constructed wetlands, the water flows horizontally through the swamp area.
Marches, Billabongs, lakes, mudflats, Peatlands are the major field of executing this process. The
horizontal motion of water instead of vertical percolation in bio-filtration bed reduces the
required time for processing (Sample and Liu 2014).
In the next phase, the water will be collected In an underground secondary chamber to prepare
the water for UltraViolet Ray testing. This process is already being used in Fitzroy garden.
Similarly, the current nighttime filtering procedure will be unchanged as well. In this process, the
accuracy of an implemented process will be measured while killing the microscopic bacteria and
other microscopic living particles.
After this phase, this water will be supplied for plantation system as well as for other operations
that need 90 to 95% of purified water (Biazin et al. 2012). After few additional processing, this
water can be used for drinking purposes as well. Additionally, the water transmitting pipelines
will be subdivided into two operating segments namely input flow pipes and output flow pipes.
The input flow pipes will be responsible to supply the water to a specific area and output pipes
will be responsible for draining the water from a specific chamber. Apart from that, the water
supply pipes are subdivided into 3 categories as per their capability of carrying water namely
Major pipelines, Secondary pipelines and minor pipeline.
Benefits of this methodology:
From the above analysis of current water supply, it is clear that the latency time between input
and output water flow is considerably high. It increases the overall time consumption for
processing the water to reuse and decrease the per unit water purification. The alteration in

current stormwater harvesting process of Fitzroy garden will increase the whole harvesting and
water purification system that can enhance the per unit water harvesting. At the same time, it also
balances the water purification depth for water collected from planted land as well as from
concrete pavement. Increase the affectivity and implementation potentiality of output water is the
major target of this new alteration process. Using Swales process and PICP will reduce the
overall water collection as well as harvesting procedure (De Kwaadsteniet et al. 2013). After
implementing the Swale and PICP technique of water collection there will be no need for the
additional solid material separation process like Gross pollutant trap. In Constructed wetlands,
the water flows horizontally through the swamp area that also a less time-consuming process
than existing absorption method. Apart from that after few additional processing, this water can
be used for drinking purposes as well. Moreover implementing this minor alteration process can
increase the overall performance and efficiency of current stormwater harvesting process of
Fitzroy garden.
Conclusion:
From the above methodology, it can be said that the stormwater harvesting system of Fitzroy
garden incorporated multiple water refreshment procedure together sequentially. The whole
system is capable of storing the rain or stormwater and refine for further use. In this current
water harvesting and filtering procedure of Fitzroy garden, some essential alterations of the
operational methodology are needed. Using PICP and Swales method at the initial stage and
replacing the current plant bed bio-filtration by Constructed wetlands process can increase the
operational efficiency significantly.

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