Water efficiency opportunities for mid-sized utilities

This paper draws on several Water Efficiency strategies recently developed by ISF for mid-size utilities. It describes examples of opportunities being identified by utilities and the approaches applied in analysing the potential for water conservation. In detailing some of the current ‘best practice’ the paper aims to provide pointers for the water industry more generally. This includes both how to identify areas of water conservation potential and in the design of programs to effectively realise savings. The paper also highlights how advances in digital technologies and data analytics can shift thinking around program design and implementation

Distributed recycled water systems - hard to justify in Sydney, but it's a great place to learn

There are strong drivers for small recycled water systems in the wider Sydney area. However, a particular set of historical and contextual factors unique to Sydney limit the viability of small systems, and need to be overcome if small scale systems are to reach their potential to contribute to improving the value and overall robustness of the Sydney network. This paper identifies those factors and discusses why some of the factors also make Sydney a great place to test and learn from these new systems

The Critical Role of Impact Distribution for Local Recycled Water Systems

Small-scale or local recycled water systems are increasingly being installed in urban centers in Australia, and throughout the world. These (often private) systems are in building basements, parks, on industrial sites and within small communities that are already serviced by existing public centralized water and wastewater networks. A consistent and fair assessment of the value of such local recycling systems, particularly in relation to centralized extension, augmentation and replacement, has proved to be problematic. This paper reveals why. It suggests that the traditional characterization of impacts into social, environmental, economic and at times technical groupings misses a key aspect in understanding the relative costs, benefits and risks of these systems: their distribution across the wide range of stakeholder groups. This paper proposes that accounting for the distribution of impacts is critical for assessments that include options of different scales and different levels of responsibility as there is a significant difference in the impact distribution between conventional urban water services and small-scale, local recycled water systems. This will help practitioners better understand the consequences of varying the impact distribution, particularly when moving from substantially public responsibility and ownership of assets to a mix of public and private responsibility and ownership

The bathroom of the future - prospects for information and control

Across sectors, innovative data collection at a device level and command and control appliances, are providing an opportunity for improved resource efficiencies, facilities management and user experiences. The applications of intelligent technologies and localised networks are growing rapidly. This discussion paper demonstrates the value and potential applications of smart water management technologies specifically focused on commercial bathroom products. The work was commissioned by the GWA Bathrooms and Kitchens Group. The paper has been developed using available knowledge, with a literature scan of fixture driven innovations, innovations in collecting and using data from fixtures and other monitoring devices

What makes you not a Buddhist? : a preliminary mapping of values

This study sets out to establish which Buddhist values contrasted with or were shared by adolescents from a non-Buddhist population. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Buddhist values was fielded in a sample of 352 non-Buddhist schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Buddhist values where attitudes were least positive concerned the worth of being a monk/nun or meditating, offering candles & incense on the Buddhist shrine, friendship on Sangha Day, avoiding drinking alcohol, seeing the world as empty or impermanent and Nirvana as the ultimate peace. Buddhist values most closely shared by non-Buddhists concerned the Law of Karma, calming the mind, respecting those deserving of respect, subjectivity of happiness, welfare work, looking after parents in old age and compassion to cuddly animals. Further significant differences of attitude toward Buddhism were found in partial correlations with the independent variables of sex, age and religious affiliation. Correlation patterns paralleled those previously described in theistic religions. Findings are applied to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and for the teaching of religious to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends that quantitative psychometrics employed to conceptualize Buddhist values by discriminant validity in this study could be extended usefully to other aspects of the study of Buddhism, particularly in quest of validity in the conceptualization of Buddhist identity within specifically Buddhist populations

A century of sea level measurements at Newlyn, SW England

The Newlyn Tidal Observatory is the most important sea level station in the UK. It commenced operations in 1915 as part of the Second Geodetic Levelling of England and Wales, and the mean sea level determined from the tide gauge during the first six years (May 1915-April 1921) defined Ordnance Datum Newlyn (ODN) which became the national height datum for the whole of Great Britain. The 100 years of sea level data now available have contributed significantly to many studies in oceanography, geology and climate change. This paper marks the centenary of this important station by reviewing the sea level (and, more recently, detailed land level) measurements and Newlyn’s contributions to UK cartography, geodesy and sea-level science in general. Recommendations are made on how sea and land level measurements at Newlyn might be enhanced in the future