Sustainable Water Management Practices at the University of Tasmania

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Contents
Table of figures........................................................................................................... 2
Situation analysis........................................................................................................ 3
UTAS’s analysis...................................................................................................... 3
Other ways to save water:...........................................................................................6
References:.................................................................................................................9

Table of figures
Figure 1 Greywater treatment.....................................................................................6
Figure 2 Greywater treatment system.........................................................................7
Figure 3 Rainwater Harvesting....................................................................................8
Figure 4 Rainwater harvesting....................................................................................8

Situation analysis
Australia has to face many challenges for ensuring the water supply because of the
drying climate along with the growing demand of the water. So in response, the
government of Australia provides the leadership at the national level concerning the
water policy as well as the legislation reforms for all the people living in Australia (Liu
et al., 2016).
Australia usually is at the leading edge when it comes to the approach and practices
for water resource management. Through legislation, for an instance, Water Act
2007 or the agendas for the policy reforms like the National Water Initiative, the
government of Australia mainly aims to continue the journey of the water reform
which also helps in ensuring the best practice of the water resource management
(Liu et al., 2016).
In Australia, the situation is quite dire as the average annual rainfall is only 469mm
per year. Australia is basically the driest continent inhabited by humans with very
restricted freshwater sources. So regardless of the lack of the freshwater sources,
the Australians use the most water per capita globally, usage per person every year
is 100,000L of the fresh year (Moglia et al., 2018).
UTAS’s analysis
Clean water is like a finite natural resource. Even when it comes to Tasmania, even
with and freshwater’s apparent wealth also drives through drought periods, which
faces the noteworthy drops in the storage of water in its vast and huge lakes along
with the waterways. Furthermore, there is a requirement of the energy to use the
water for processing, pumping, and heating, re-pumping and then re-processing it
(Koech et al., 2018).
The University of Tasmania has water harvesting along with the infrastructure for
water efficiency in their three campuses like dual-flush toilets, rainwater tanks or
water efficient fittings and also have been working on installing the water-efficient
fitting in all the new constructed buildings since 2009. In 2016, water consumption
was recorded approximately to about 211, 00 kl in 2016 which comes down to 10 kl
per student (Moglia et al., 2018).

Benefits of sustainable water usage
Sustainability of water is like a complex issue at the University of Tasmania because
water can be described as the resource which is put to use for multiple purposes
along with various points of interaction within the college community. So it can be
said that the university has a lot to gain from making more sustainable and sensible
choices for the use of water (Koech and Langat, 2018).
The cost incurred by UTAS
Incorporating the sustainable principles for the decisions concerning the water
management makes the economic sense since there is a certain cost which is
associated with the purchasing of the water from the provider of the university's
along with discharging sewage or effluent, it is very likely that cost might increase in
the future. Reduction in the consumption of water at UTAS represents the important
as well as significant savings in the medium term (Sønderlund et al., 2016).
Recognised best practices by the UTAS
By incorporating the water management in a sustainable manner UTAS also
demonstrates a commitment concerning the achievement of the set objectives which
not only benefits the organisation but also the society at large. This in turns also
helps in building the goodwill within the public sphere (Sønderlund et al., 2016).
Risk management
Sustainable water management is like an important tool for reducing the financial,
reputational and environmental risks for organisations. Risk can also be reduced with
the help of the following ways:
 Fulfilling the commitments made to the government concerning environmental
sustainability by meeting the requirements set by the legislation (Monks et al.,
2019).
 It also helps in demonstrating the best practice to the community.
 It also helps in ensuring the engagement of the students as well as academic
staff so as to make sure the reduction in the consumption (Monks et al., 2019).
Meeting the social as well as environmental goals
Sustainable water management can help an organisation to meet the range of social
as well as environmental goals and objectives. For instance:
 Energy conservation as well as reduction of CO2 emissions with the help of the
reduction or decrease in the consumption of the water since water pumping,

heating, delivery as well as wastewater treatment facilities which also consumes
a huge amount of energy (Clifford et al., 2018).
 It also helps in ensuring the availability of the resources of the future generation.
 Habitat conservation with the help of minimising human water use also helped in
the presence of the freshwater ecosystems. It also helps in the reduction of the
need to build the infrastructures for water diversion (Clifford et al., 2018).
What can be done to save the water at UTAS?
There are numerous ways to save water and they all start with the people living at
university. So just keep in mind that every drop counts.
Residents:
 Take showers for a short duration of time. Use a timer, stopwatch, clock into your
bathroom and set a challenge for yourself to cut down the showering time. Try
and practice a three to four minutes shower which is an ideal time (Rayner,
2019).
 Wait until you have loaded full clothes before you start washing the load. Also,
make sure that you use the economy mode and this will save you both the water
as well as electricity. In this way, you can save up to 3,000 litres a month.
 Make sure you have turned the tap off while brushing your teeth, doing dishes or
shaving etc. (Connell, 2016).
 Soak pots and pans regardless of letting the water run while you are scraping
them clean.
 Wash your vegetables as well as fruits in a pan of water in the place of running
water from the tap itself (Connell, 2016).
 For thawing the food, do not put the use of running water. Instead, use the
defrost option of the microwave oven or the refrigerator for using the water in an
efficient manner.
 Do not use the toilet as the trash can because each time one flush the toilets,
9lteres of clean water is been used (Connell, 2016).
Non-residents
 Make sure in case of leaking toilets or faucets you report it. Report it to the
campus service via phone or email.
 Bring a refillable water bottle to the university so as to avoid the use of the
drinking fountain as it wastes more water. Also make sure while you are using the

drinking fountain, let go of the handle or the button while you take the pause for a
breath (Connell, 2016).
Other ways to save water:
1. A website to provide a guiding
In Australia, it becomes very important to conserve water as it is the world's driest
inhabited. In order to get the best as well as innovative ideas to converse the water
in Australia, one way is to visit a various authentic website. These websites provide
you with easy and very accessible techniques and methods which will help in the
conservation of water in Australia. Websites like scientificamerican.com etc. talk
about how people in Australia can save the water which will be as per the situations
in Australia (Liu et al., 2016).
2. Grey water treatment
Grey water refers to the domestic wastewater produced which excludes sewage.
This is because the main difference between both of the water is organic loading.
Sewage has more content of the larger organic loading as compared to grey water.
Some people even categorise the kitchen water in another category as black water
because of the high level of the organic content as compared to other sources of
wastewater like the bathing water. People are getting aware of the benefits of re-
using grey water or the used water (Koech et al., 2018).
So if the proper treatment is been done of the grey water, it can then put to use for
the good purpose even. The list of the uses includes the use for laundry, toilet
flushing or the irrigation of plants. It can also put to use for the irrigation of both foods
as well as non-food producing the plants. This is because of the nutrients in the grey
water as it an excellent source for minerals as well as nutrients for the crops.
Figure 1 Greywater treatment
Source: [Koech et al., 2018]

Figure 2 Greywater treatment system
Source: [Sønderlund et al., 2016]
3. Storage for rainfall
Water conservation is one of the major need in Australia as it is one of the driest
continents. Rainwater harvesting refers to the gathering, accumulating as well as
storing of the rainwater. Traditionally, rainwater water harvesting helps in providing
the people for the drinking water, water for livestock, water for irrigation, or for the
domestic usage or a way to increase the groundwater levels (Monks et al., 2019).
Specco treatment Inc. also believes in the responsible management and also helps
in designing of systems which usually helps in the functional as well as especially
engineering designs which help in the providing and complying with the purposes
concerning the safety manner (Monks et al., 2019).
Cultec’s speciality is also in building the ground stormwater detention ponds. They
usually work with both non-traffic as well as traffic rated ponds. This system is the
only system that can be put to use in more than one level of the chambers where the
recharge is been done. There are other systems like multi-functional Drain tanks,
permeable paving or even the drainage cells (Monks et al., 2019).

Figure 3 Rainwater Harvesting
Source: [Liu et al., 2016]
Figure 4 Rainwater harvesting

References:
 Clifford, E., Mulligan, S., Comer, J. and Hannon, L., 2018. Flow‐Signature
Analysis of Water Consumption in Nonresidential Building Water Networks Using
High‐Resolution and Medium‐Resolution Smart Meter Data: Two Case
Studies. Water Resources Research, 54(1), pp.88-106.
 Connell, J., 2016. Water Reform in the 21st Century: The Changed Status of
Australian Agriculture. In Rural Change in Australia (pp. 183-200). Routledge.
 Koech, R. and Langat, P., 2018. Improving Irrigation Water Use Efficiency: A
Review of Advances, Challenges and Opportunities in the Australian
Context. Water, 10(12), p.1771.
 Koech, R., Gyasi-Agyei, Y. and Randall, T., 2018. The evolution of urban water
metering and conservation in Australia. Flow Measurement and
Instrumentation, 62, pp.19-26.
 Liu, A., Giurco, D. and Mukheibir, P., 2016. Urban water conservation through
customised water and end-user information. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112,
pp.3164-3175.
 Moglia, M., Cook, S. and Tapsuwan, S., 2018. Promoting Water Conservation:
Where to from here?. Water, 10(11), p.1510.
 Moglia, M., Cook, S. and Tapsuwan, S., 2018. Promoting Water Conservation:
Where to from here?. Water, 10(11), p.1510.
 Monks, I., Stewart, R.A., Sahin, O. and Keller, R., 2019. Revealing Unreported
Benefits of Digital Water Metering: Literature Review and Expert
Opinions. Water, 11(4), p.838.
 Rayner, S., 2019. Rhythms of Prediction in South Australian Water Resource
Management. Weather, Climate, and Society, 11(2), pp.277-290.
 Sønderlund, A.L., Smith, J.R., Hutton, C.J., Kapelan, Z. and Savic, D., 2016.
Effectiveness of smart meter-based consumption feedback in curbing household
water use: Knowns and unknowns. Journal of Water Resources Planning and
Management, 142(12), p.04016060.