Tafe Water Management
Episode: SA Garden Gurus Special – Our Changing Climate
Presenter: Kim Syrus
The students at Tafe Urbrae Campus are giving us a lesson on water management with their new rainwater harvesting project and the aim to make the nursery totally self sufficient. The nursery uses about 3000 kilolitres of water a year. Fifty percent of the water will be captured from the roofs from their classrooms and workshops and the other fifty percent will be coming from recycling the water used in the nursery.
Rainwater is stories in holding tanks and then gravity fed to a huge 225 kilolitre main tank. Water is then moved from this tank through to the nursery from powerful pumps, filling more holding tanks that run the sprinklers.
The ground under the nursery is lined with a thick plastic that slopes into a central channel. Any water hitting the ground will flow into this channel and start its recycling journey. A large underground pipe runs from the nursery to a submerged tank where heavy sediment like small stones can drop out. After that, water flows to a series of reed beds where even finer particles of sediment are removed. Grasses and sedges are important here, removing nutrients which they use to keep growing. Water slowly continues to a gravel filled wetland where different plants extract even more nutrients. Eventually it trickles into a retention pond where it sits and settles.
The final process involves water being pumped from the pond through a sand filter where it is disinfected and micro organisms are removed. It then makes its way to the main tank to start its recycling journey all over again.
Presenter: Kim Syrus
The students at Tafe Urbrae Campus are giving us a lesson on water management with their new rainwater harvesting project and the aim to make the nursery totally self sufficient. The nursery uses about 3000 kilolitres of water a year. Fifty percent of the water will be captured from the roofs from their classrooms and workshops and the other fifty percent will be coming from recycling the water used in the nursery.
Rainwater is stories in holding tanks and then gravity fed to a huge 225 kilolitre main tank. Water is then moved from this tank through to the nursery from powerful pumps, filling more holding tanks that run the sprinklers.
The ground under the nursery is lined with a thick plastic that slopes into a central channel. Any water hitting the ground will flow into this channel and start its recycling journey. A large underground pipe runs from the nursery to a submerged tank where heavy sediment like small stones can drop out. After that, water flows to a series of reed beds where even finer particles of sediment are removed. Grasses and sedges are important here, removing nutrients which they use to keep growing. Water slowly continues to a gravel filled wetland where different plants extract even more nutrients. Eventually it trickles into a retention pond where it sits and settles.
The final process involves water being pumped from the pond through a sand filter where it is disinfected and micro organisms are removed. It then makes its way to the main tank to start its recycling journey all over again.
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