Stormwater system feeds cooling towers

A university campus in Bundoora, Australia, used a stormwater drainage system to save more than 4 million gallons of water per year.

By Peter Harbour, PhD, and Robyn Overall, PhD, CJ Arms and Associates March 22, 2016

At a major university campus in Bundoora, Australia, designers took advantage of a large stormwater drainage system (the "moat") that wound through the site and was fed by a large catchment upstream. The project was supported through the help of government funding through the Office of Living Victoria.

The project included an open-water wetland to improve the quality of the water moving through the site, with extraction and treatment (screening, microfiltration, disinfection, and storage) taking place prior to distribution and reuse in the five largest cooling towers on campus (see Figure 3). This project is saving approximately 4.4 million gallons of potable water each year.


Peter Harbour is a senior scientist at CJ Arms and Associates.

Robyn Overall is water sustainability scientist at CJ Arms and Associates.