Rainwater Harvesting in Denver
Rainwater Harvesting
This project was a partnership consisting of MHFD, the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF), the Denver Green School (DGS), and the Urban Watershed Research Institute. The project was also made possible by Denver Water, who augmented the rainwater used for irrigation. The cistern shown below collects runoff from the new building at DGS and uses this for irrigation of the adjacent landscape areas. Most of the 8000 square-foot roof drains to the 3000 gallon cistern. The cistern was sized to capture a rainfall depth of approximately 0.7 inches.
The DGS rainwater harvesting system was designed, in part, for student involvement. DGS is a public school in Denver that utilizes project-based learning through the lens of sustainability. The project allowed students to see differences in volume associated with usage, rain events, and cistern evacuation in anticipation of forecasted rain events. The WERF partnership enhanced this aspect of the project, providing components for real-time monitoring of the cistern via the web. The system used information from to NOAA weather forecasting to drain a volume commensurate with the forecast prior to an event so that the volume was available for stormwater capture. This type of automated system can be used to address stormwater treatment using a smaller footprint than would be required using conventional methods. Additionally, measurements included volume collected; volume used for irrigation and volume drained to make storage available for forecasted rainfall. This project was part of a nationwide WERF study.
