Total Water Cycle

Urban Water Management at Witchcliffe Ecovillage

Wayne Prangnell, July 2019
 Bio

Introduction

Wayne has spent his career planning, designing, building and operating the infrastructure of towns in WA, Queensland and NSW. A major focus of this has been around water infrastructure ranging from drainage in North Queensland where stormwater systems deal
with regular cyclones and more than 4 times the rainfall of WA SW to sewerage treatment plants in Mandurah, Australind and Dardanup and wastewater recycling and storm water treatment in Margaret River. He has a personal interests including aquaponics, electric
vehicles and growing fruit and has recently started a south west chapter of the WA Rare Fruit Club.

Over the last three years he has been working on bringing all of these elements together in a unique development to showcase how we can build more sustainable settlements.
 Margaret River House

This new house in Margaret River has a floor area of 260m2 plus a double carport and an outdoor living area and eaves giving a roof area of 380m2. It doesn’t have sandy soils like the swan coastal plain, so there is a piped stormwater drainage system that takes
away 380 kilolitres of clean rainwater each year from the roof. The rainwater is mixed with dirty water from the road and then needs to go through a stormwater treatment system before finding its way back into the Margaret River. Each year the households 4
occupants use 190 kilometres of water which is pumped from the Yaragadee aquifer ½ way to Nannup, filtered, toxic chemicals added, stored, pumped again via an extensive pipe network back to the house in new suburb of Margaret River that looks suprisingly
similar to this new house in a new suburb in Bussellbry. The water that is piped in has an earthy, chloriney taste, so the heathy lifestyle concious family has an under eave tank so that they can enjoy drinking rainwater.

This family has paid thousands of dollars for a stormwater system to take away their clean rainwater and even more for a water supply system to bring them back average tasting scheme water. They then pay $600 for each year for this water.
 Josh’s House
At Witchcliffe Ecovillage, we were fortunate not to have scheme water connected, otherwise we would have been forced into centralised utilities thinking. Instead we have spent a lot of time refining how we can get the best results with rainwater collection and use.
We have looked at water consumption and surprisingly, there is very little data in Australia and especially WA on water use from rainwater tanks. There are a few references and a lot of anecdotal information that says that houses on rainwater supply use a lot less
water. We were also able to engage a water statistician that was able to show that water consumption by Margaret River residents is lower than Perth residents and there is some data from the Water Corporation that shows that new houses with water efficient
appliances (provided they are not huge houses in affluent suburbs with lots of appliances, pools and spas) use less water than older houses. So we’ve developed tank size models based on water consumption of 100 - 130 L/person/day compared to Perth scheme
water use of 150L/p/day. We have also modelled our tanks on actual water consumption data from the driest years on record from historical records at Witchcliffe. Something interesting to note for the stormwater designers amongst us, is that when we look at
annual rainfall records, there is a lot less variation from year to year than there is in the peak flows that we are more familiar in using for stormwater system design.

100L/p/day
Tank Chart
Living stream riffle
Wide verge Swale
 Beef

Pork
Coffee

Sheep

Wheat

Apple
5kL/kg

10kL/kg

The Water We Eat

data source waterfootprint.org
15kL/kg
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18
17
2 6

17
2 4 1
3 3
5
5

5 7

D
5

OA
3
5

LR
5 3
3

MIL
17

DAVIS ROAD
1
16 1
5

16
5 5 5
13
9 15
19
14 AVE
TON
11 VING
SHER
LOT 2807 & 2812 DEVELOPMENT ANALYSIS
LAND AREAS SUMMARY
• lot 2812 57.09ha
• lot 2807 62.02ha
12
10
1 16
• TOTAL 119.11ha
• Urban cell 60.41ha
(as defined by Witchcliffe Village Strategy)

8 AY
5 IGHW OPEN SPACE SUMMARY
ELL H

REDGATE ROAD
BUSS
• Public open space 4.91ha
• Community gardens 10.12ha
• Ecovillage common 42.95ha
(includes dams and conservation and wastewater
vegetation areas)

LOT SUMMARY
• Agricultural lots 13.71ha
• Private lots 26.81ha

LEGEND STAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6
AFFORDABLE HOUSING 3 (15) 2 (11) 2 (10) 0 2 (10) 2 (10) 11 (56)
Cottage lots (300m² - Studio cottage lots AGED DEPENDANT 0 0 0 1 (20) 0 0 1 (20)
525m²) (240m²)
MEDIUM DENSITY CLUSTER 0 0 1 (20) 0 1 (28) 0 2 (48)
Family lots (676m² - Ecovillage tourism lots (Proposed)
1 AGRICULTURE 3 WASTEWATER TREATMENT 7 ECOVILLAGE DEPOT 10 FOOD HUB 13 COMMUNITY CENTRE • Office spaces 1,091m²) (180m² - 2,177m²)
Organic cultivation • Storage/maintenance of • Sustainable food distribution • Sustainable business incubator COTTAGE 21 17 14 0 10 5 67
SYSTEMS (Proposed Location) Lifestyle lots (1,532m² Community centre
• Horticulture: e.g. vegetables, • Treatment plants machinery and tools centre for ecovillage producers • Public amenities • Makers’ spaces FAMILY 28 17 22 0 24 21 112
herbs, table grapes, passionfruit • Treated water storage pond and wider region • Function centre - 2,634m²) Creative hub
LIFESTYLE 0 0 3 0 0 7 10
kiwifruit, berries etc • Wastewater irrigation 8 ECOVILLAGE COMMERCIAL • Processing • Community library 16 SHORT STAY COTTAGES Affordable housing Food hub
• Orchard fruit: e.g. avocados, • Wholesale • Available for permanent residents, COTTAGE / SHORT STAY 0 0 11 0 15 14 40
CENTRE lots (1,500m² - Brewery & cafe site
stone fruit, citrus, pome fruit 4 ECOVILLAGE TOURISM • Village-scale small business: e.g. • Retail 14 VILLAGE SQUARE short stay rentals, and/or holiday
2,327m²) Boutique eco-hotel STUDIO COTTAGE 0 4 4 0 0 0 8
• Nut tree crops CHALETS permaculture nursery, butcher, • Commercial kitchen • Ecovillage gathering place homes
Aged and dependent Ecovillage depot ECO-TOURISM 0 4 7 0 0 0 11
• Processing of food grown on lot (Proposed Location) baker, etc • Weekend markets
• Low impact tiny house village • Pharmacy/health centre 11 STUDIO COTTAGES • Community events 17 CONSERVATION AREA lots (1,500m² - Agricultural Lots BOUTIQUE ECO-HOTEL 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
Residential dwellings, chalets • Alternative technology businesses • Shop front/office/studio • Playground with accessible 1,630m²) (13.71ha) BREWERY & CAFE 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
and workers accommodation not
permitted
5 AFFORDABLE HOUSING • Convenience store addressing the village square,
residential above
equipment 18 EDUCATION Medium density POS (shire) (4.91ha) COMMERCIAL 0 3 3 3 3 3 15
• 5x100m² (max) AH dwellings in • Cellar door • Bocce, chess (Proposed Location) cluster Community garden
2 each cluster • Residential occupancy permitted • Maker’s cottages • Wadandi bush tucker garden
Cottage / short stay (10.12ha)
FOOD HUB 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
ECOVILLAGE COMMON • Professional consulting rooms • Outdoor theatre
• Consistent with AMRS Affordable 19 CAFE AND BREWERY CREATIVE HUB 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
• Agriculture/Agroforestry Housing Strategy 2015 9 ECOVILLAGE TOURISM • Artists’ studios
• Cafe lots (CSS) (300m² - Ecovillage common
COMMUNITY CENTRE 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
• Dams • Ecovillage tourist accommodation 15 CREATIVE HUB • Brewery and wine bar 680m²) (42.95ha)
• Conservation areas
6 EXISTING ORGANIC VINEYARD • Short term stay self contained 12 BOUTIQUE HOTEL • Centre for innovation and creative
Village commercial Education (3.04ha) EDUCATION 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
• Organic winery eco-cottages • Restaurant activities
centre lots (918m² - AGRICULTURE 0 0 5 6 0 2 13
• Wine/tapas bar • Music studio
• Short term/backpackers’ • Artists’ studios 3,344m²) ECOVILLAGE COMMON 1 0 0 0 0 0 1
accommodation • Technology centre TOTAL LOTS 67 57 99 30 91 63 407

Sustainable Settlements Pty Ltd /

Date: April 2019 Perron Developments Pty Ltd
Revision: H Sustainable Human Settlement

N
Design & Development
Scale: 1:2,500 @ A1 10437 Bussell Hwy
1:5,000 @ A3 Witchcliffe WA 6286
Lots 2807 & 2812, Bussell Highway, Witchcliffe 0 50 100 150 200 250 300m
www.ecovillage.net.au
t. 08 9757 6688

© Sustainable Settlements Pty Ltd

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45ML p.a. rainfall
20 ML Evap
captured in tanks

💦💦
200ML runoff

North Dam 80ML Irrigation

100ML
40 Ha catchment
15ML of grey water
reuse
Environmental Flow
100 ML p.a.

150ML 5ML p.a. Irrigation

runoff 15 ML Evap + Fire Safety 29 ML p.a.
wastewater treated

Runoff
Central Dam 340 ML p.a. predevelopment,
50ML
30 Ha catchment 570 ML p.a. post development

Treated
Water
Environmental Flow 30ML Storage
90ML p.a.
20 ML Evap

220ML runoff
Irrigation 28 ML irrigated
South Dam
68 ML p.a. annually
80ML
44 Ha catchment

Witchcliffe Ecovillage Water Cycle

Environmental
Flow 132 ML p.a.