Australian Water Management Review Vol. 1 2014 | Page 97

WARRNAMBOOL’S
REGIONAL ROOF WATER
HARVESTING TOOLKIT

T

he multi-award-winning Roof Water
Harvesting concept has captured the
water industry’s imagination, setting a
benchmark in urban water management
and stormwater reuse.

Developed by Wannon Water and realised through
a demonstration site in Warrnambool, Victoria, the
Regional Roof Water Harvesting Project has shown
that the roofs of new urban growth areas can generate
enough water to meet the demand in those new areas,
providing a sustainable supply augmentation and
reducing the impact on water environments.
The concept, believed to be the first of its kind
in Australia, is actually quite simple. Rain water
is collected from rooftops in new residential
subdivisions and transported through pipes to the
existing raw water storage. There it is treated and
becomes part of the drinking water supply.

It’s a sustainable and financially viable alternative
to individual tanks and other augmentation options
and has earned national acclaim for its social,
environmental and economic sustainability results.
It’s all about using a resource that would otherwise
go to waste, avoiding the transportation of water
over long distances and lowering peak flows to
rivers and streams.

Background

When connected to an estimated 3,000 homes in
Warrnambool’s booming north east growth corridor,
the project will contribute 450 megalitres of water
to the city’s supplies and save around 585 tonnes of
carbon emissions annually.

Growing towns and cities like Warrnambool typically
replace vacant land with roads, driveways, paved areas
and roofs. From a water perspective, this results in:

Wannon Water has also developed a toolkit to help
assess the financial viability of roof water harvesting
systems in other growth areas across Australia and
to provide quick comparisons with other potential
water supply sources.

• reduced volumes going to groundwater

Wannon Water is a regional urban water corporation
serving South West Victoria, including the provincial
centre of Warrnambool, a steadily growing city with a
population of approximately 34,000 facing increasing
water demand. Localised climate change predictions
also sugges B