The overall aim of the WATERSAVE network is to establish a coherent, forward-looking UK academic community in the water conservation and recycling field and develop its interaction with industry and government.  Specific objectives are fivefold;

Communication – to facilitate communication and co-operation, exchange of ideas/insights, data, methods and models between academic and industrial partners

Dissemination – to improve the speed and relevance of the dissemination of new ideas, solutions, methodologies, and data, and to improve feedback from ‘end users’ through the innovative use of electronic communication;

Mobility and cross-fertilisation – to enhance the mobility and interaction of personnel between academic sub-disciplines, between university departments and between academic and industrial communities, and to foster and encourage twinning and merging of individual ideas;

Development – to allow development of new research ideas/initiatives and to facilitate response to calls for proposals (national and international)

Excellence – to promote and encourage excellence in research in the emerging areas of water conservation and recycling at both the national and international level.

The above objectives will be achieved as the network carries out the following activities:

1. Organise annual WATERSAVE meetings  for discussion of future research needs, and needs of participating partners from industry, business and government

2. Facilitate other WATERSAVE workshops hosted by different participating partners for presentation of technical material, formulation of strategy

3. Respond to research calls, initiate research proposals including twinning and cross-fertilisation of ideas

4. Participate in other seminars/short courses on water conservation and recycling

5. Establish a WATERSAVE web-site and use it to publicise the work of the network: proposed meetings, previous meetings, findings, useful links, other conferences world-wide

6. Use the web-site to make available the data sets collected on water consumption and water efficient devices for use of the wider community: academics, water companies, consultants, users, and specialists from other professional communities.
 

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There are a number of areas of initial interest to the WATERSAVE network, which spring from the needs of UK practice, but can be informed by the current research of the network partners, other UK researchers and other international research in field.   The proposal is to not necessarily cover all these aspects, rather those of most importance and contemporary relevance. Following are some of the topics of  initial interest:
 
 

Consumption data
 

An enduring problem when discussing and assessing water demand management is lack of accurate and impartial data.  The main information currently available is the SODCON survey carried out by Anglian Water (Edwards & Martin, 1995), plus other earlier water company/authority studies (Hall et al., 1988; Russac et al., 1991) and Imperial College’s detailed appliance studies (Butler, 1991; Butler et al., 1995).  Such data, by its very nature, is always out-of-date and site-specific.  The network will not have the means to carry out further studies itself, but it is proposed that a publicly accessible database is set up, which collates data that is available from published and unpublished sources.  This database will be made widely accessible via the World Wide Web.  Note, this will be complementary to the DETR/EA Water Conservation Research Database, in that it will aim to contain detailed research information, rather than overview conclusions.  It is also our intention to use the database to consolidate the information and experience on water conservation and recycling from other parts of the world (e.g. Australia, Japan, US).

The main factors affecting water consumption are (Butler & Davies, 2000): climate, demography, socio-economics (including lifestyle) and extent of metering.  The amount of water consumed tends to increase with higher mean temperatures, for example during the dry summer of 1995, increases in average demand of 50% or higher were observed in some areas (Butler & Davies, 2000).  The potential for climate change has been well documented, and this is predicted to have an influence on water consumption into the future (Herrington, 1996).  It is also known that per capita consumption decreases with increasing household size (Edwards & Martin, 1995).  There is also evidence that retired people use more water.  These are particularly important given the demographic shifts expected in the UK of increasing numbers of single-person households and a generally ageing population.  Approximately 15% of UK households are now metered (Butler & Davies, 2000) and evidence suggests these tend to decrease per capita consumption by about 10% (Russac et al., 1991).  Clearly, there are complex interacting factors at play here, and the network will assess the importance of these individual factors, hence shedding light on groups/areas where demand management might be most effective.

Many water-saving devices (conservation and recycling) are available and on the market, but there is little verified data available to as to their performance (Griggs et al., 1996), particularly long-term.  A second database will be set-up to collate information gathered on this aspect.  Sources of data include the published literature, grey literature, the British Bathroom Council, the Institute of Plumbing, and individual manufacturers.

Rather more work has been carried out on grey and rainwater recycling, including studies by several members of this network (Butler et al., 1996; Daiper et al., 2000; Dixon et al., 1999a; Pratt, 1999), but it is still an active research area with a number of unresolved performance issues.  In particular, work is still required on comparing the performance of grey water recycling with rainwater reuse, modelling and predicting water-saving and water quality, assessing the most appropriate treatment technologies (e.g. physical, chemical and/or biological) and miniaturisation.  These and other emerging aspects will be discussed and debated within the network.

There is currently an on-going debate concerning the quality of water that is required for recycled water. BSRIA (Mustow et al., 1997) have argued for no detectable faecal coliforms/100ml for most applications. Nolde (1995) reports that total coliform levels of 105 MPN/100ml and faecal coliform levels of 104 MPN/100ml are considered to be acceptable for ‘service water’ in Germany. Dixon et al. (1999), on the other hand, have suggested that standards should reflect the type of usage and the type of dwelling (single or multi-occupancy in particular). The network will be involved in this debate, drawing together best practice, and locating (if possible) supporting epidemiological evidence.  The group will also be interested in contaminants beyond routine microbiological and chemical analysis, searching perhaps for newly emergent organisms in the simpler water cycles of direct reuse.

In response to the 1995 drought, the Environment Agency required the water companies to submit plans for their water resources until 2025.  In each of the plans, the companies were required to set targets for the impacts of their water efficiency programmes.  The Agency found that “few such targets are explicit … suggesting that companies are still not giving sufficient priority to this issue.” (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, 2000).

It could be argued that water conservation and recycling will never become firmly established in the UK without some form of regulatory push.  This could, for example, be in the form of statutory limits on water consumption by new water fittings and technologies.  It is debatable whether government has the will to do this, but the advantages and disadvantages need to be weighed, and this could be a topic for the new network to work on.  Links will be established with the Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme and Water Regulations Advisory Committee.

Whilst the development of suitable technologies and policies which provide opportunities for water conservation and recycling has moved on apace over the past decade, their practical application will not depend solely on effective and reliable engineering performance or administrative structures. Successful implementation also requires an understanding of the social and cultural environment in which they are to be applied. The issues here are complex, having to do with beliefs, attitudes and trust, rather than technical specification. Accordingly, it is increasingly being realised that the public’s own agenda regarding water conservation and reuse topics needs to be clearly exposed (Jeffrey & Seaton, 1998).

In fact, public perception, is viewed as one of the major barriers to effective water conservation and recycling projects (DeSena, 1999). For example, McDaniels et al. (2000) have recently highlighted how the aesthetic characteristics of the water produced will impact willingness to use, but may provide unreliable cues to perceptions of quality.  Therefore, the identification of user concerns needs to be achieved before the technology is brought to market, even to the extent of providing feedback into the engineering design process, and the WATERSAVE network has a role here in facilitating this process. 

Currently there is little incentive to individuals to save water.  To promote this, widespread metering has been proposed, but is still a politically sensitive topic.  This network could look at the various benefits and drawbacks of metering and proposals for prices and tariff structures, to try and ensure a more informed debate is possible in the future.

A further aspect relates to the cost of individual devices and their payback periods.  Cheaper devices may have short payback periods, but more expensive equipment, such as recycling, may never be cost-effective if purchased by an individual for a single household.  Work is still required to determine the optimum number of people to be served by such systems.

The financial support for the network WATERSAVE is provided by EPSRC for the first three years. The network will then achieve a level of self sufficiency.
 

Butler, D., (1991). A small-scale study of wastewater discharges from domestic appliances. J.IWEM, 5, pp.178-185.

Butler, D., Friedler, E. and Gatt., K. (1995). Characterising the quantity and quality of domestic wastewater inflows. Wat.Sci.Tech., Vol. 31, No. 7, pp. 13-24.

Butler, D., Dixon, A., Fewkes, S. and Hooper, A., (1996). Local water conservation, reuse and renovation combined greywater and rainwater recycling. 21 AD: Water. Architectural Digest for the 21st Century. School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University

Butler, D. & Davies, J.W. (2000) Urban Drainage, E & FN Spon, London, ISBN 0 419 22340 1, 485 pp.

DeSena, M. (1999) Public opposition sidelines indirect potable reuse projects. Water Environment & Technology. May 1999.

Diaper, C., A. Dixon, D. Butler, A. Fewkes, S. A.Parsons, M.Strathern, T.Stephenson  And  J. Strutt (2000) Small scale water recycling systems - risk assessment and modelling, 1st IWA Congress, Paris, France, April.

Dixon, A., Butler, D., and Fewkes, A., (1999a). Water saving potential of domestic water re-use systems using greywater and rainwater in combination, Wat.Sci.Tech., Vol.39, No.5, pp.25-32.

Dixon, A., Butler, D. & Fewkes, A. (1999) Guidelines for Greywater reuse – health issues.  J. CIWEM, 13, 5, 322-326.

Edwards, K. & Martin, L. (1995) A methodology for surveying domestic consumption.  J.CIWEM, 9, Oct., 477-488.

Griggs, J.C. Shouler, M.C. & Hall, J. (1996) Water Conservation and the Built Environment. 21 AD: Water. Architectural Digest for the 21st Century. School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University

Hall, M.J., Hooper, B.D. & Postle, S.M. (1988) Domestic per capita water consumption in South West England, J.IWEM, 2,  6, 626-631.

Herrington, P.R. (1996). Climate Change and the Demand for Water, HMSO, London.
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McDaniels, T.L. Axelrod, L.J. & Cavanagh, N. (2000) Public Perceptions Regarding Water Quality and Attitudes Towards Water Conservation in the Lower Fraser Basin. Water Resources Research. Vol. 34 , No. 5 , pp. 1299-1310

Mustow, S., Grey, R., Smerdon, T., Pinney, C., Wagget, R., (1997). Water Conservation - Implications of Using Recycled Greywater and Stored Rainwater in the UK, Final Report 13034/1, prepared by BSRIA for DWI.

Pratt, C.J. (1999). Use of Permeable, Reservoir Pavement Constructions for Stormwater Treatment and Storage for Re-Use. Wat. Sci. Tech., 39, 5, 145-151

Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (2000) Water efficiency in the home, POST Note 136, London.

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