GreenBuild Blog
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Nega-gallons and Aqua-vores: New Approaches to Water Conservation
Swedish architect (and “aquavore”) Anders Nyquist designed this apartment block of 32 units around a central interior courtyard in Nydala, Umea, Sweden. Built in 2006 and illustrating his “split box” concept, there is no connection to the sewer or district heating system, since the water and energy cycles are completely integrated with the building design. Courtesy of Anders Nyquist.
The same is true for water. It’s far cheaper to conserve water than to provide for new supply. Nega-gallons is a new measure of water doesn’t have to be provided as a result of conservation and efficiency measures. Supplying nega-gallons (of demand reduction) is always going to be cheaper than new infrastructure solutions (to increase water supply). In San Diego, for example, the county water agency is relying heavily on nega-gallons in future water supply planning. Owing to investments in efficiency and consumer education, the county is expecting the contribution of water conservation and recycled water (nega-gallons) to increase from 11 percent of total supply in 2008 to 17 percent in 2020.
If water is priced more expensively, people will try to conserve it, by purchasing more water-efficient appliances and fixtures, fixing leaks, using drip irrigation instead of sprinklers, recovering and reusing rainwater and graywater and finding alternatives such as xeriscaping (landscaping with low water-using plants). In this way, each gallon conserved adds a gallon to the nega-gallon supply.
People are especially concerned about water shortages and adverse to paying increasing prices for imported water or more exotic supply sources such as desalination. For this reason, I find that many people want to become “aqua-vores”—only using water that falls on or near their property. While perhaps a bit extreme in today’s world, supplementing public water supply by using rainwater and graywater for non-potable requirements reduces the demand on conventional water sources and thus contributes to the nega-gallon supply.
In deciding to get some or all their water from onsite sources such as rainwater harvesting and graywater recycling than from the public water supply system, aquavores take the equivalent action of “locavores,” who want to eat food grown locally rather than shipped in from 1000 or more miles away.
Posted by Jerry on 06/29/2010 at 01:37 PM
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