Water Kit - Hunter Water

BEING WATERWISE AT SCHOOL
actions
1 Water meter readings
Read the water meter every day for a month and record the results.
This can be done at the beginning and end of each school day -
which will help you to check for leaking pipes or taps (ie you will
be able to detect water use overnight when no one is using taps,
bubblers and toilets).
2 Desktop review
Collect information from as many bills as possible. Hunter Water bills
are issued every four months. Tabulate the amount of water used,
the number of billing days and the cost of the water. Ask the school
administrator to keep future bills for your study.
3 Water audit
Water audits vary but usually include the following:
• Conduct an inventory of every water fixture in the school (eg taps,
toilets, bubblers, showers) and identify if any of these are leaking.
• Measure the rate of water flow from school taps, you need to
select at least one tap inside and one tap outside.
• Measure the amount of water wasted by a dripping tap and
calculate this over a year. This is best done by using a stopwatch
and a measure to collect the water. Measuring the waste for a
minute is a good point to start from.
4 Stormwater, flooding and drainage
Researching stormwater, flooding and drainage issues can also be a
useful component of a water audit.
5 Water saving strategies
Discuss and develop strategies to conserve water across a variety of
water uses in the school.
6 Water saving action plan
Develop an action plan that summarises the results of the desk top
review and water audit, and the water saving strategies developed
over the previous steps. The action plan can set targets for the
school to become more water wise and makes recommendations on
how to implement the water saving strategies.
tips
• This will highlight whether there are any leaks. Leaky pipes can
waste 90 litres of water a day and a dripping tap can waste 45 litres
a day.
• The meter readings will also show daily patterns in water use. Large
amounts of water use on weekends should be investigated.
• If you have bills over several years compare water use over time.
Take into account any changes in the number of students enrolled
each year. The data can be used to calculate a figure for water
usage expressed as kilolitres per student per day.
• Results may show a trend but more importantly show how much
money the school is spending on water. This will provide baseline
data so savings can be calculated as waterwise activities begin.
• Identifying the places where water is used will help you locate any
problem areas.
• Identifying leaking taps is critical in a water audit.
• Measuring the amount of wasted water will show you the extent of
the problem. Dripping taps waste more water than people realise.
• Get a map of your school and outline key waterways, drainage lines,
flood prone areas, then discuss how you could manage, reduce or
improve things.
• Students can develop their own strategies to save water including
ideas for individual and group actions.
• Some strategies might require the support or cooperation of other
people eg plumbers. The P&C committee can be involved to help
raise money for the purchase of water saving products eg rainwater
tanks, water efficient showerheads.
• Prioritise the strategies with regard to importance, time and
money. This information feeds into the Action Plan and the School
Environmental Management Plan.
• Ideally involve the whole school community in the action plan.
• Set realistic targets and recommendations.
• Include an education and communication plan to help promote the
plan and ways in which wasteful water habits can be changed.
• Information developed through the action plan can then be included
in the School Environmental Management Plan.
7 Implementation and monitoring
On implementing the action plan, set up procedures for monitoring
and evaluating to see how effective the school has been in meeting
the targets and recommendations set out in your action plan.
• Contact other local schools to find out if they have undertaken
a water audit and how they implemented their action plan. What
difficulties did they face and how did they address these issues?
• Identify areas where the community may be able to help. For
instance, local businesses could be called upon to help the school
purchase water saving products; service clubs could help provide
labour for the installation of these in the school.
• Promote and celebrate achievements.
Water kit . ssS . 001 . april 2010
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