Water management p

Buenavista area: Water management

by Monga Sophie Dany

small scale water treatment units

small scale water treatment units

small scale water treatment units

cleaning and recycling of gray water

rooftop system of recuperation of stormwater

redirection of gray water to small scale rooftop water treatment unit

consumption of water by the building users

conversion to potable water

distribution of potable water in the building

On average, an adult uses 150 m3 of water per day. Meanwhile, each year, more than 27 436 billion m3 of water rain in Madrid. Why cannot we use this water to answer part of the population water needs? Thus, my proposition of a circular economy aims to answer to the water needs of the Buenavista neighborhood. In order to do so, four steps must be fulfi lled:

The installation of a system of stormwater recuperation. This system can be implemented in each roof of the buildings. Within this system, the water can be fi ltered and transformed into potable water. Then, the water can be distributed in the building and be used for anything: drink, shower, toilettes, etc. Once the water has been used, it needs to be cleaned and recycled. In order to recycle the water, the micro water treatment plant is a solution. With approximately 9 m2, a micro water treatment plant can clean the water of 20 persons.

Once the water has been clean, it can be re-used by the building habitants. As a result, in order to establish this circular autonomy, only the building roofs would be used; to install both the stormwater tun and the micro water treatment plant.

This project enables us to answer the water needs of the population while doing it on a local scale. Moreover, with time, the population will save the money they used to spend on the water. However, this project has limits. First, installing the required structures means a considerable change in the whole water system of the neighborhood; it might be costly and take time before being cost-effective. Moreover, this project has social barriers, establish such a structure means that everyone must agree to pay for its installation.

Then, the population must agree on the way to split the water: Does two same apartments, one with fi ve people and one with only one, take the same amount of water from the collected water? Finally, this system cannot fully answer the population water needs, it depends a lot of the climate, on summer the stormwater is close from 0, so the neighborhood will still be dependent of the Madrid water system.