Spiire was engaged to prepare the Clarkefield Integrated Water Management Plan (IWMP) for Western Water to identify and investigate opportunities to implement Integrated Water Management within the development at Clarkefield and at a broader Riddles Creek Recycled Water Treatment Plant (WTP) catchment scale.
It was developed with the vision to optimize water use efficiency and strive toward a water neutral development. It provides measures that in future can be implemented at a wider regional scale. The key driver was to reduce the volume of water discharging from the Riddles Creek RWP to the downstream creek, in line with EPA discharge requirements.
A range of IWM measures were investigated including:
- Reducing water use by the installation of water efficient appliances at a lot scale
- Aquifer storage and recovery
- Class C recycled water supply for irrigation and Class A recycled water supply for reuse
- Lot scale rainwater harvesting
- Water Sensitive Urban Design solutions
Investigation into these measures involved water balance modelling, MUSIC modelling and hydraulic analysis. In addition, a Class C and Class A wastewater treatment options analysis was undertaken by principle wastewater process engineer to determine land take and cost requirements of the systems.
