Theme 4’s continued work on rainwater harvesting was recently recognised at the Water Efficiency Network’s (WATEF) Annual Conference.

Peter Melville-Shreeve, David Butler and Sarah Ward were awarded the prize for Best Paper. All three presented at the event with Professor Butler giving the after dinner keynote speech entitled “Resilience, Hype or Hope”, and Sarah updating the group on her RainShare social enterprise.

Their co-authored paper entitled “Evaluating FlushRain Retrofittable Rainwater Harvesting: A Pilot Study” was ranked highest by the peer review process. The work reported a year long study at a property in Exeter where a low-cost retrofittable rainwater harvesting system was installed and monitored for 12 months. The paper illustrated the ability of the system to reduce water demand (£80+ savings per annum) whilst also mitigating rainwater runoff during an extreme storm event that was captured by the data loggers. Following on from this work, the group are planning to install a wider range of systems in the Urban Demonstrator Project in Birmingham with their project partners Severn Trent Water. Read More: