Feasibility Study: Implementation of Rooftop Rainwater

Collection for Irrigation of Green Space

Jon Auman, Matt Ballard, Thomas Orzech, Trent Potter, Samuel Tatum
 Abstract
Auburn University contains large areas of well planted landscaped greenspace, which
require commensurate amounts of irrigation. This project aims to map available rooftops and
open green space on the Auburn campus, and combine that with annual precipitation data for
Auburn, Alabama to calculate the volume of rainwater that may be collected from selected
building roofs and used to irrigate greenspace. This was compared with historical irrigation costs
and volumes to derive the economic savings possible through rainwater collection. The study
concludes that the implementation of a rainwater catchment system on Auburn rooftops could
provide sufficient water for irrigation of campus green space. This strategy is physically possible
but appears economically prohibitive in cost due to the volumes involved and current developed
nature of the campus area.

Introduction
Auburn University prides itself on being “the loveliest village on the plains” and as such
maintains large swathes of lawns and planted areas across campus. This draws a heavy water
burden in terms of irrigation needs, and means of reducing irrigation costs would be a great boon
for the University. Currently the majority of Auburn campus buildings have no water catchment
systems in place, and do not gather any rainfall for university use. Using the average annual
rainfall in in Auburn and finding the area of rooftop that could implement catchment systems, the
amount of rainfall that can be collected may be determined. This can be compared to the current
irrigation demands of the university to determine how much of the burden may be lifted through
use of catchment water for irrigation of campus greenspace. Additionally, the current best
management runoff practices will be mapped in order to determine the current level of runoff
treatment and how much more effective rooftop water collection would make the system.
The buildings selected for this project all lie in the heavily developed areas of campus,
due to a selected area focusing on the most populated area and close lying buildings which could
ease the collection of rainwater from separate structures for concentration and distribution.
Additionally the buildings were selected for availability of irrigation data for the surrounding
green space. Thus the green spaces being examined all lie in the vicinity of these buildings to
further ease the possible logistical burden of transporting collected rainwater. The current best
management practices in place within this area of interest are also important in determining the
current amount of precipitation retained and treated on campus instead of flowing into a
stormwater pipe network. These practices will be examined to determine how much of a
difference rooftop collection would make in the total runoff treated on campus. Also important
are the future planned, but not implemented, best management practices, which would
presumably already be in place and serving the area of interest before the installation or
activation of any rainwater catchment system from the rooftops.
This project cannot fully answer as to the feasibility of implementation of a rooftop
rainwater catchment system across Auburn University campus due to several variables that factor
in to actual installation and usage of such a system. Beyond the actual water accessible to
catchment the storage and distribution system would play a large part in determining the actual
benefit to such a project. The collection and storage itself does not pose a significant cost burden,
with gutter systems and storage tanks available commercially at relatively cheap prices, but the
distribution or pumping system could pose a significant obstacle in terms of budgeting to the
effective use of catchment rainwater. Depending on the complexity or method of implementation
of such a catchment system the integration of the water with the existing irrigation system may
be infeasible due to logistical and economic concerns. Alternatively, a renovation of the existing
irrigation system would allow the opportunity to fully connect any rainwater collection system
with a new irrigation network, but this would be substantially more expensive compared to
simple storage and distribution through a more temporary means.

Methods
The first step in the project required obtaining area data for the irrigated areas on campus
as well as the rooftops of interest in Auburn. An accurate ArcGIS basemap in the NAD 1983
stateplane coordinate system was provided and was considered adequate for the purpose due to
the unchanging nature of the building features being mapped, and the lack of significant
development of campus green space in the area of interest.
Due to the size of the campus’ concrete area of interest was required to prevent scope
creep and determine which buildings and greenspace areas would be included in the project. The
area of interest was figured as bounded by Magnolia street to the north, Wire road to the west,
Samford street to the south, and College street to the east. This encloses the most densely
populated and heavily built areas of campus, including the library, the Haley building, and the
Student Center. This area of interest also leaves out a significant portion of campus to the south
west, which is much less developed and would alter the available rooftop space and green space
ratio significantly.
The mapping was accomplished within ArcGIS, without any manual GPS input required.
The mapped features consisted of building rooftops, green spaces, and current best management
practices on campus (Figure 3). These features were all easily visible on the map, and present on
several campus maps and design plans, allowing for easy delineation within ArcGIS as polygon
features. Several layers were created to differentiate the features being mapped. These included a
layer containing the rooftops of interest, one containing the irrigated land, and three layers
dedicated to planned, proposed, and point best management practices.
The required data concerning campus landscape irrigation was acquired from the office
of facilities management through the contact of Dr. Mark Dougherty. The current superintendent
of the Landscape Services division, Justin Sutton, provided a Campus Landscape Master Plan
that was created in 2007 due to a drought in Auburn. Additionally, Dee Anne Gillespie, an
Auburn utilities and energy data analyst, provided the historical water usage excel document for
the entirety of Auburn’s campus. All of the data included was considered to be non-return water
usage from 2009 to 2018 meaning it provided the volumes and prices of water used specifically
for irrigation of campus green spaces. For determination of total rainfall being considered for
collection average annual precipitation for Auburn, AL was obtained from the National Weather
Service. Based on the historical climate of the region 53 inches of rainfall was taken as the best
value depth of rainfall expected each year on Auburn campus.
Following the mapping of rooftops, green spaces, and best management practices, spatial
data was used to determine the areas of the features of interest for combination with outside
precipitation data and historical irrigation costs and volumes. The average annual precipitation
for Auburn was combined with the area of the selected rooftop features to determine the average
volume of rainfall that could be collected from the rooftops annually. Part of these calculations
include the assumption that 100% of the rainfall landing on the mapped roofs would be collected
by the proposed catchment system. This assumption stands due to the sheer volume of rainfall
collected in the system, as the data indicates that even allowing for only 50% capture the system
remains capable in collected sufficient irrigation volumes. This volume was then compared with
the historical irrigation volumes and costs for the campus green spaces within the selected area to
determine the extent to which rooftop rainwater collection could alleviate annual University
spending on irrigation.
The Village was examined as a primary focus of the study due to the available irrigation
data, and the values of the data lying well within the minimum and maximum values of the
measured areas. Also important is the similarity between the Village and several other areas of
campus such as the Hill and the Quad.

Results and Discussion

The BMP mapping showed a clear lack of stormwater mitigation on the core of campus,
with current practices only affecting roughly 0.5% of campus. Even the proposed practices only
raise that number to 4%, which is still a far reach from acceptable stormwater mitigation levels.
This demonstrates that the water catchment plan is a possible solution not only to irrigation costs
but in reducing the effects that impervious surfaces of campus have on runoff into the local
waterways.
Preliminary catchment analysis showed that the mapped areas were more than capable of
collecting enough rainwater to irrigate the nearby landscaping. As seen in Table 1, each area is
capable of capturing between 130 to 600 percent of its necessary water, depending on the rooftop
area to green space ratio. Since even the area with the highest greenspace with the lowest amount
of rooftops was able to capture enough to irrigate the area, it can be assumed that even the
unmapped areas of campus would be able to as well.
On a month to month basis, the numbers looked a little different. Since the rainfall
capture and irrigation rates are not linear (Figure 5 and 6), there was a chance that the irrigation
needs of an area would not be met each month. Looking at the village as an example, chosen due
to having average rates of capture compared to the other areas, some months did not appear to
catch enough water (Table 3). Irrigation rates peak during the summer, while rainfall rates
remain fairly constant. Therefore some summer months the rooftops were not able to collect the
necessary amounts of rainfall. That being said the previous months were at a significant enough
surplus that with the proper amount of storage capacity, previous months’ rainfall could easily be
stored for use in the summer months.
In determining the economic viability of implementing a rainfall catchment system the
cost of installation of such a system must be considered. The first components required are
building gutters around the edges of rooftops. Complete gutters cost from $3 to $5 per linear foot
of rooftop, as well as gutter filters and first flush diverters to avoid the fouling of storage tanks
and system pumps with debris and detritus or the highly polluted first flush of rainwater off the
roof. Storage tanks for rainwater range in price from $0.50 to $4 per gallon of storage. This
varies depending on factors including the material used in the tank as well as the situating of the
tank, with underground or elevated tanks costing more to install and maintain. From Table 3, a
storage volume of close to 500,000 gallons would suit the capacity requirements of the Village
area. Elevating storage tanks could decrease pumping requirements, at an increased installation
cost, however the current state of Auburn campus limits the available space for the placement of
tanks, especially with the high volumes needed. While storage is generally the most costly
portion of a water catchment system, the scale of this project leads to the pumping portion of the
system having a very high cost as well. Based on the required pumping infrastructure used in the
water catchment system implemented by the Hill Country Alliance public schools, the cost of
pumping irrigation water to 4 acres of green space was approximately $15,000. Taking into
account the massive amount of green space to be irrigated and pumping costs drastically
increase. At minimum implementing a catchment system in the Village area alone could cost
around $500,000 for the tanks themselves, not taking into account any demolition required to
create the space for said tanks. Adding the cost of pumps, and housing systems and the total cost
of the system could range well over a million dollars.

Conclusions
Based on the rooftop areas, rainfall collection rates, and irrigation needs, implementing a
rainwater collection into the Auburn campus is physically feasible. During most of the year the
roof areas considered will provide sufficient water to irrigate the adjacent landscaping.While the
volume of water provided through the proposed catchment system is well over the required
irrigation volumes, the cost of installing and integrating the catchment system with pre existing
irrigation piping systems could prove prohibitive in cost. A future rainfall catchment system
installed alongside a new irrigation system, especially if taken into account during new building
construction, could ease the cost burden posed by such a system through implementation of
underground storage tanks and physical integration with a new irrigation system. If additional
filtering and treatment steps are added to the catchment system the catched water surplus could
be used for additional purposes during peak storage months, such as evaporative cooling or use
as grey water or even potable water in on-campus utilities. No matter the method of
implementation of a catchment system, the cost of a system sized for the volume of water
required will always far exceed a payback period of anywhere less than a decade at least. Given
the rising cost of freshwater and forecasted increasing global usage rates, Auburn’s cost of
irrigation will continue to increase in the future. Beyond the inherent value in reducing water
usage from an ethical standpoint, the rising cost of water will slowly increase the economic
viability of implementing a large scale rainwater catchment system on Auburn campus.

References
Storage and Pumping costs Referenced from: http://www.hillcountryalliance.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Large-Scale-Rainwater-Collection-at-Texas-Public-Schools.pdf

Rainfall Data:
https://www.weather-us.com/en/alabama-usa/auburn-climate#rainfall

Landscape Water Management Plan for Auburn University

 Appendix

Figure 1. Map with existing and proposed best management practices at Auburn
University
Figure 2. Map depicting ideal rain capturing roof areas and adjacent irrigated land
 Figure 3. Map of data collection area with all considered features

Table 1. Implications of optimal water capture by location on campus

 Table 2. Auburn University non-return meter water usage

Table 3. Comparison between captured rainfall and used water for irrigation by month

Figure 4. Comparison of water capture to water used for irrigation in 2017

Figure 5. Monthly irrigation percentages at Auburn University

Figure 6. Rainfall on a monthly basis in Auburn University

Figure 7. Cost of water in Auburn University over the past 8 years