City of Raleigh Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential Analysis
Authors:
- H. Thomas Tant and Thomas Hu - Hazen and Sawyer
- Kenneth R. Waldroup and Perry A. Allen - City of Raleigh
As a part of the ongoing Environmental Impact Study for the proposed Little River Reservoir project for the City of Raleigh, the present study is aimed to help the City identify significant water conservation and efficiencies opportunities and quantify potential water savings resulting from each.
The study looked at a range of demand reduction mechanisms and identified four significant and quantifiable ones:
1) Retrofitting residential indoor equipment to the 1994 water efficiency standard.
2) Retrofitting residential indoor plumbing fixtures to the EPA WaterSense standard.
3) Eliminating automated lawn irrigation with portable water.
4) Water reuse.
A home-age-based water efficiency analysis is conducted to estimate the potential water savings if all homes can achieve the indoor demand level of post-2000. Based on the guideline of the EPA WaterSense program, a separate indoor efficiency calculation is performed to estimate the additional water savings if WaterSense efficiency can be achieved via old home renovations and new home construction.
Next, a lawn irrigation efficiency analysis is conducted based on the daily water production data since the City’s permanent water conservation measure took effect in 2008. A multivariate regression model is developed to predict the City’s daily irrigation demand and potential irrigation water savings. Finally, a water reuse analysis is performed to quantify potential water savings from the water reuse program Raleigh plans to develop in the next 30 years. Preliminary results from the current study suggest that the four comprehensive water-saving mechanisms can collectively reduce Raleigh’s per capita water demand by about 15%.
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