Title: Impacts of climatic variability on rainwater tank outcomes for an inland city, Canberra

Authors: Monzur A. Imteaz; Cristina Matos; Abdallah Shanableh

Addresses: Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia ' Science and Technology School, Universidade of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract: A daily water balance model is used for the performance analysis and design optimisation of household rainwater tank for an inland Australian city, Canberra. To investigate the climatic variabilities of rainwater tank outcomes nine representative years (three for each dry, average and wet condition) are selected from historical rainfall data. For the three climatic conditions, a number of rainwater tank outcomes (water savings, townwater augmentation, overflow and reliability) are presented in relations to tank volume, roof area, number of people in a house (i.e., water demand). It is found that 100% reliability cannot be achieved even in wet year with a large tank (10,000 L) connected with a large roof (300 m²). Also, it is observed that significant climatic variabilities exist in regards to studied rainwater tank outcomes, except for very few conditions having very large tank (10,000 L) connected with a small roof (100 m²). However, computed variabilities are still lower than the expected climatic variabilities in regards to annual water savings, annual townwater uses and reliabilities computed for Australian coastal cities, i.e., Sydney and Melbourne.

Keywords: household rainwater tanks; daily water balance; climatic conditions; reliability; climate variability; inland cities; Canberra; Australia; performance evaluation; design optimisation; water savings; townwater augmentation; overflow; tank volume; roof area; water demand.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHST.2014.067730

International Journal of Hydrology Science and Technology, 2014 Vol.4 No.3, pp.177 - 191

Received: 29 Jun 2014
Accepted: 07 Aug 2014
Published online: 07 Mar 2015 *

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