Scenario analysis of rainwater harvesting and use on a large scale – assessment of runoff, storage and economic performance for the case study Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Abstract

Research on rainwater harvesting mainly focuses on a building scale. Scant information is available about its performance on a large scale. This study aims to determine the potential for, and economic viability of meeting non-potable water demand by rainwater harvesting for a large scale case (21.5 km²): Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. A dynamic model was developed to analyse scenarios of varying rainfall, catchment surfaces and storage capacity. Four potential system configurations of catchments and non-potable uses were analysed for their economic performance with different water prices and storage options. This study found that, given sufficient storage and catchment size, all non-potable water demand of Schiphol can be supplied, reducing drinking water demand by up to 58%. Diminishing returns for adding storage and catchment to the system make full supply inefficient. Current water charges make most large scale system configurations not viable due to high investment costs for supply networks and storage infrastructure.

Keywords:

• Rainwater harvesting
• airport
• sustainable urban water management
• economic viability
• quantitative scenario analysis

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the help of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and especially the data and guidance provided by Bart Straver. Furthermore, we would like to thank Alex Hagebeek from the fire brigade at Schiphol, Rene van Schie, Rogier Bleys and Noortje Beuvery from Sodexo at Schiphol, Sarah van den Heuvel from Brussels Airport and Marius Schaeffer from Royal HaskoningDHV for providing the essential data for this paper. Finally, we would like to thank Claudia Agudelo-Vera, Ilse Pieterse-Quirijns and Mirjam Blokker from KRW Watercycle Research Institute and Jouke Dykstra for their valuable input. The first author of this paper made the major contribution to conceptualisation of the research and developing the runoff model. The last author contributed with the economic analysis and supervision. Writing was shared equally between first and last author.

Notes

1. For the purpose of this paper, large scale refers to the scale of a suburban precinct within a city.

2. A 30 year return on investment period was chosen to evaluate economic viability, because it is the approximate life of water treatment assets and public buildings in the Netherlands.