Status: COMPLETED May 2010 - September 2010
With the continuous concern with water resources and water management in a changing climate, students at McGill University are taught the value of water sustainability but no building or system on the Macdonald Campus can be used to showcase sustainable water recovery and usage.
A key element of sustainable design is ‘eco-education’, which is the concept that incorporates sustainability into the curriculum to allow improved understanding of system design and its impact on the environment. A fully functional rainwater collection system at Macdonald Campus would be used as a ‘showcase’ hands on sustainable teaching tool for students to learn about water conservation and rainwater harvesting in particular.
The design of a water collection system for sustainable irrigation and education at Macdonald campus was proposed as part of a class project in Bioresource Engineering to educate the university on sustainable water recovery and includes steps for filtering, storage and delivery of the water for use in the greenhouses and surrounding gardens. The design consists of installing eve troughs around the building, three collection tanks, a final storage tank, pipes and a monitoring system. This project will provide water for the Horticulture Research Center and will provide a training site for current and future students studying water resources and sustainable practices on the campus.
For further information conerning this project, or to get in touch with its members, please contact the krista.houser [at] mcgill.ca (SPF Administration Team).
