Weeks 12-13

Hi guys!

Well, this should be my last post for my entire SRP--unless I do a post-presentation entry! I can't believe these past three months have already passed and I have had so much fun posting each week. So I would like to just say thank you to all of you who have supported me since the beginning, helped me through it all, and contributed in any way! And to all of you who have been reading my blog, I really appreciate it!

Also, an update of plans with the presentations. Instead of being at the library on the 21st, I will be presenting my SRP on Tuesday the 19th at the NAU SBS West Room 103 at 6 o'clock (there is one presentation before me and several after)! The address is: NAU South Campus Building 70 (on the corner of McConnell and Pine Knoll). I hope you all can make it! If you have any questions, feel free to comment!

Again, thank you,

-Lia

Week 11

Welcome back everyone!

Like I said in the last post, the final presentation is underway! I did a run-through with Ms. Vaughan on Monday to prepare for my practice presentation on Wednesday! Although there isn't any new research to present here, one update I can give you is that my final presentation will be on May 21st at 6:00 pm at the Coconino County Public Library meeting room (3000 N. 4th Street)! The head of BASIS mightbe there, but I will put my best foot forward regardless. There are three other SRP presentations that day with mine being the first and each lasting approximately 25 minutes! I hope to see you guys there! :)

-Lia

Week 10

Hi everyone!

All of my research and data collection is done so that means presentation making and paper writing is well underway! My practice presentation for Dr. Hartman and Dr. Clark will be next week and that will determine if I am truly worthy of my project. The final presentations are scheduled for May 19th-21st in two different locations: Coconino Center for the Arts and the Eastside Community Library meeting room! I believe they are from 6-8pm each day so I hope you guys can make it! I will update you on when my timeslot is next week! Finally, as we are nearing the end of the SRPs, I will be wrapping up my blog posts within the next few weeks. Thank you all for reading my posts and I hope you've enjoyed them! Have a good week. :)

-Lia

Week 9

Hey guys!

Again, this week's post is going to be fairly short because most of my research is done and I'm now focusing on making my presentation and paper for the city!
    The main part of this week was to meet with Robin Harrington, Water Conservation Manager of Flagstaff, and ask her a few questions regarding water usage, predictions, incentives, etc. To begin, I asked her what plans the city might have if water availability gets scarcer (such as the situation in California). She told me that they have had a strategy report since the 1980's with three levels (or "strategies" as they call them) of water conservation based on different criterion. Furthermore, as the strategies "go up," water restrictions and conservation enforcement become more severe due to less water available--level three is implemented for the most severe conditions while level one is more moderate. For example, in strategy one, people are encouraged to us xeriscaping techniques, use the best practices to minimize waste, and follow a watering schedule. However in strategy three, everyone must follow the protocol of strategy one and two as well as: "not using any potable water for outside use," "not using waste water intentionally or unintentionally," and "not using fire hydrants other than for public health and safety." Now, this isn't nearly the same as cutting water usage by 25% in CA, but we still do have a plan if things turn south. Finally, Robin did tell me that we are currently in strategy one but we did go into strategy two for some time a few years back. If you want to see the full report, here it is!

#2: How is the city predicting future precipitation? What have they predicted? 
      In short, she told me she honestly didn't know the answers and that I would need to ask in a different department--hey, honesty is the best policy (unless you're asking who stole the cookies from the cookie jar, because in that case I didn't do it). Anywho, back on track, what she did tell me is that she would think that they look at historical data to predict but also take into account population growth. Although there have been drier periods in the past, but it may not have had a huge affect on the city because the population was much smaller. With this in mind, she said that the City Council has to plan changes well in order to balance the water amount available with the population in order to conserve. She also informed me that the city has about 100 years of water in our sources! That really surprised me because I never expected us to have that much! Finally, on the topic of usage, she said that even though the people of Israel live off of 18 gallons per day, a person could theoretically live off of the bare minimum of 10 gallons/ day. However, how much one can cut back on water usage depends on how willing they are. Some are willing to take a sponge bath while others may put up a fight when they can't wash their car every week.

#3: What efforts are being made to impact climate change (emissions-wise)--both on a city and individual level? 
      On the city level, it is mainly public outreach and education about conservation as well as social events such as promoting. On an individual level, Robin recommended that people:

• Travel less
• Bike ride and walk more
• Use less electricity (thus possibly lowering emissions from power plants)
• Use less water (less electricity to pump it)

      If I did all that, I bet I'd be the coolest cat in town! Now, even if it seems like you won't make a difference just by doing this individually, I think that you can. Even if you can't force others to change how they live, all you can do is change how you live yours. But if others see you, then they might be inspired to do the same! Ripple effect, people!

#4: What are the water sources for the city?
      She told me that the city gets its water from three main sources: ground water pumped from several ranches in the surrounding area, Lake Mary, and several wells. Depending on the season, they will also take advantage of the Inner Basin springs.

#5: What incentives do you have for people to use less water?
     I told you, incentives! She told me that the main way the city does this is through a rebate system. The main three rebates someone can take advantage of is the rainwater, turf, and low-flow rebates. With the rainwater, if you harvest at least 1,000 gallons of rainwater--lowering your overall city water consumption--the city will give you a $100 rebate! For the turf, you would get a rebate if you replace at least 1500 square feet of your outdoor turf with plants that require less water. Finally, even though the national requirements on toilets is 1.6 gallons, if you install toilets requiring 1.3 gallons or less, then today is your lucky day! For more information on all of these, you can find them here!

#6: If many of the residents of Flagstaff began harvesting rain, how would that effect/ benefit the city?
     Now, I believe I discussed this question last week but just to recap, Robin told me that one benefit is that people would use less city water, the city would have to pay less to pump groundwater. However, she did tell me that one downside is that waste would become more concentrated and would thus be more strenuous on city utilities. I understood this to be caused by people becoming more aware of their water consumption (one imminent, non-lethal side effect of harvesting rainwater) thus trying to conserve by using less to remove waste, making it more concentrated!

     On a final note, there is a fairly new documentary out called Cowspiracy which discusses how the main water consumer in California is the cattle industry. Even though this doesn't have much to do with rainwater harvesting, it does have a lot to do with water conservation and how even diet can influence your community. Interesting idea, huh?
     Well, this wraps up this week, so thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day! And if you're interested in any of the other awesome Senior Research Project, feel free to check them out aqui! :)

-Lia

Week 8

Hello everyone!

   This post will be extra-ordinarily short because--as some of you might know--some of us SRPers are transitioning into the final phase of our projects: making of the presentation. Some are still collecting data but for me, most of my research is done and I will start focusing on creating a paper for the city and the final presentation! Now to continue, this week I will be answering the following questions: "what is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" "do coconuts migrate?" and "what are the benefits of rainwater harvesting?"

   I will start off this week, as said above, by discussing what the benefits might be (especially for the city) if many people installed a collection system. On the household basis, it not only lowers your water bill but it also makes you more "aware" of the environment. With our family, once we started harvesting, we began to appreciate how precious water really is--especially in an arid climate--and how much the climate can affect our supply. We also became aware of how we can manage our water more efficiently to cut back on waste. For the city's benefit, reducing the amount of water flowing down the streets or alleys during monsoon season can not only reduce erosion but save money by using less utilities to fix damage and deal with an overflowing water treatment plant. After talking with Robin Harrington, she informed me that the city would need to pump less fresh water because there will be less of a demand for city water. However, she also told me that a downside might be that sewage could be more concentrated and thus harder to process for the city. Although I did not completely understand this, this "over concentration" might be caused by people becoming aware of their water consumption, cutting back on their usage by installing lower flowing toilets, and thus "diluting" the waste less by using less water. But hey, that's just my idea! Well that concludes this week's post but stick around next week when we explore the incredible relationship between witches and ducks and the phenomenon of writing a scientific paper!

Thanks for reading! :)

-Lia

Week 7

Hello humanoids!

For week 7, the main goals were to make graphs/ figures of precipitation and water usage, estimate the optimal tank size, and look at past data to see how that might relate to our usage and potential storage.
     So to start out, I worked with my father to create a bar graph comparing average annual precipitation and per capita daily water usage for Flagstaff, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

To further describe this graph, the average precip. for Israel is 21 in. (surprisingly, about the same as here!) and daily consumption is 18 gals. For Flagstaff, precipitation is approximately 22 in. and consumption is 53 gals. Finally, for the UAE, the precipitation is 3.1 in. and consumption is 157 gals. All in all, I find it interesting that although we get about the same annual precip. as Israel, they use about one third the amount of water we do. Also, the UAE gets 1/7 the precip. but uses almost three times the amount of water we do, and almost nine times that of Israel. Not only does this put our water situation into perspective, but it helps solidify the idea that we can live on a limited water consumption.

Using data from the past 30 years (I decided to use the 4SW station this time), the next steps we took was to compare the cool season (Oct.-Mar.) and the warm season (Apr.-Sep). Now, even though this doesn't include predictions, doing this will show how variable the climate is around here and give us a better on how rainwater harvesting might work to get us through dryer periods. First, the basic comparison:

Although the cooler season has higher precip., I think that the warm season is not that far behind because a lot of our water comes during the monsoon storms (July, August, September).

Next we (I mean "I," as in the royal "we"), broke up each cool and warm season for each year since 1985:

What I find interesting here is that (in most cases) if one season is lacking in precip. the following season makes up for it! But, as shown from the 2010 warm year through the cool year of 2013, there is steady decrease in precipitation. Since designing the system and tank size is so important, we used this type of trend and this "season system" to narrow down the best tank size.

Looking at the wettest month in the cool seasons (January 1993), I calculated how much a household could have collected with an average roof size.

2,270.20 x .623 x 8.58 x .95

= 11,528 gallons

So, we estimated that the optimal tank size is 10,000 gals. Since a family of four would use 10,800 a month (with limited consumption), 16,000 gallons would be too big. The important thing to remember is that you won't fill the entire tank and wait for the next storm. As you'll harvest water, you will also use some. Therefore, 10,000 gallons is an ideal volume because you won't have wasted space but it can also hold enough rainfall in the wetter parts of the year (most months won't bring in as much precipitation as January '93, so no need to worry about overflow). 

However, there needs to be enough water to get you through a drought. So, using our household and the average water consumption, we calculated how much space you might need if there are longer periods of low precipitation or the worst case scenario (such as the period from April of 2010 through March of 2013). So, let's say that you filled your 10,000 gallon tank from the previously season--that can be our starting amount. 

For the first season, I took that 10,000 gals. and subtracted the amount we would have used if living off of 18 gallons/day (2,160 gals./month). At the end of the 1st month, what remained is: 7,516 gals. However since it did rain some that season, I added that into the end amount. There was approximately 8 inches of precip. but since I want it in inches/month, I divided that by 6 (1.3 in.) 2,270.2 x .623 x 1.3 x .95 = 1,746. Therefore we would have had 9,262 gallons remaining.

I repeated this process for the next few months. Since there are 6 months per cool/ warm season, I used the same data for the first season six months. Here are my results of remaining amounts (gals):

1st month: 9,262 7th month: 4,940 13th month: 1,593

2nd month: 7,102 8th month: 4,434 14th month: 776

3rd month: 6,688 9th month: 3,928 15th month: -41

4th month: 6,274 10th month: 3,422

5th month: 5,860 11th month: 2,916

6th month: 5,446 12th month: 2,410

To summarize, with a 10,000 gallon tank and a period of decreasing precipitation, the average person would have run out of water halfway through the 3rd season. So, in the toughest times, would the 16,000 tank work better? Well according my calculations, it would help prolong your water supply, but you would still fall short before the end of the drought. Thus, there would be a need for more conservative water use.

However, let's say, hypothetically, that it didn't rain from January through May (150-ish days) but you had filled your 10,000 gal. tank. In that time, with limited consumption, our household would have used 10,800 gallons. If that drought only lasted 4 months (120 days), we would have used 8,640 gallons. Even though we would have run out of water in the 5 month period, all of this narrows down how big our tank should be and how much we'd need to get through a drought.

The last thing this week is comparing our use the worst and best season. To start in the wettest cool month, it rained, on average, 4 inches a month (equating to 5,374.5 gallons). With our monthly use being 2,160 gals, we would be covered. In the driest cool month, it rained about .3 in/ month (403.1 gals.)--not enough with that amount of consumption. In the wettest dry month it rained was about 2.6 in/month (3,493). Again, sustaining our needs. Finally, in the driest warm month, there was .67 in. of rain (900 gals.). Now, even though it seems counter intuitive for the "driest warm" to be wetter than the "driest cool," remember that the latter part of the warm season is our monsoon season!

To conclude, the point of all this was to not only find the optimal tank volume but to also see how rainwater harvesting could take you through drier periods!

I apologize for the late post but just so you know, out SRP presentations are April 19th-21st so if you would like to come watch, all are welcome! Thanks again for reading! :)

Till next time,

-Lia

Week 6

Hi everyone!

I apologize for the late post! I have been away for spring break but now that we're back in school, we can get back into the swing of things!
     The first goal for week 6 was to estimate the amount of water one household could collect per day (average) in 2020 and 2025 and compare that to the average amount of water we use today. Using the average roof size and predicted precipitation values from previous posts, I made calculations for each graphs (10 years, 15 years, and 30 years) by plugging those values into the same equation I used before (Rainfall x 0.623 x Roof Area x Runoff Coefficient). Now, of course, to get the average amount of rainfall the average household could collect per day, I divided the final number by 365 (I'm sorry, leap year babies).

Decade trend: 2020: 29.2 gals. 2025: 54.52 gals.

15 year trend: 2020: 83.56 gals. 2025: 90.16 gals.

30 year trend: 2020: 49.48 gals. 2025: 46 gals.

The average household could have collected 67.77 gallons!

     I know to some, this data looks grim. But don't fret! I'm not your average doomsday hooligan yelling mumbo-jumbo on the street corner. I am hopeful. I believe that if we do make changes to our lifestyles (discussed below), things can turn out for the better.

     Now, after contacting Robin Harrington, she informed me that in 2014, the average water consumption per capita per day, domestically, is 53 gallons. Clearly, from comparing the data above to our usage, it is not possible for the average household in Flagstaff to sustain their way of life solely on rainwater. There are several things people can do to change this. One is we can reduce the amount of water used per day (ideas posted previously). This can conserve the amount we have and get us through drier times with some security. We can also cut back on emissions (you too, volcanoes). Since greenhouse gas and fossil fuel emissions are linked to climate change, it makes sense to reduce the amount we produce if we want to change the environment. And this ranges from driving less to more sustainable energy sources. You can find more ideas here and here, and share some of your own in the comments!
     Back on track, another goal for this week was to make a bibliography and summarize my lit review. I will list all the articles and websites I have gotten information (below). I hope to expand this list as I finish up my background research.

• Seager, Richard, et al. Projections of declining surface-water availability of for the southwestern United States. Nature Climate Change. May 2013
• Vano, Julie., et al. Understanding Uncertainties in Future Colorado River Streamflow. American Meteorological Society. January 2014
• Garfin, Gregg (University of Arizona), Franco, Guido (California Commission). Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Chapter 20: Southwest. U.S. Global Change Research Program. 2014.
• Hereford, Richard. Climate Variation at Flagstaff, Arizona - 1950 to 2007. U.S. Department of the Interior; U.S. Geological Survey. 2007.
• Water in Israel-Palestine. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. July 2010.
• 'UAE Water Consumption Highest in the World. Emirates 24/7 News. March 2013.
• Reclamation, Managing Water in the West: Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study - Executive Study. U.S. Department of the Interior - Bureau of Reclamation. December 2012.
• Sustainability Program Recommendations. The City of Flagstaff. October 2012.
• Climatography of the United States - Station: Flagstaff Pulliam Ap, AZ. U.S. Department of Commerce; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; National Climatic Data Center. February 2004.
• Lavine, Jeremy. El Niño. 
• Water Conservation. The Utilities Department - City of Flagstaff. 

Well, even though this post was shorter than usual, I hope enjoyed it. I plan to write that official summary within the next week so keep your eyes peeled for that! As always, thanks for reading! :)

                                           -Lia 

Week 5

Welcome back, everyone!

     In this post, I'll be talking about statistics for my own home, ways we can cut down on water usage, and how foreign nations can help us understand what we can do back home.
     The main goal for the 5th week was to take all of the data that I found and relate it to the current usage to see how they compare. This post may be a little more vague and about all sorts of stuff because I'm still working with my advisors to make that comparison. I also created the abstract for my project. "What is an abstract" you ask? Well let me tell you! When you read a scientific article of any sort (c'mon, I know all of you have subscriptions to Scientific American), the first thing you see is the abstract. Essentially, it is an introduction, summary, and background to the study, why it was conducted, what they discovered, what they did (method), and what they concluded. Well, I did just that, and after I polish it, I'll submit it here!
         Anywho, going on to the meat of this week, Ms. Vaughan and I had a little trouble tying it all together so I consulted my dearest father. What follows is what we came up with as to what steps I should take. Since we weren't 100% on the domestic water usage amount yet (the average data I gave you in the 1st week included domestic and commercial uses), I hope to talk to Robin Harrington, city water utilities extraordinaire, to get current data.
     To continue, although we can't assume that our own house represents the average roof size for the city, we decided to use it for this week's purposes since we already have a fully-functional rainwater harvesting system installed. Also, since we can access our monthly usage since 2012, I can compare that to the city's average and look at how rain harvesting has impacted our overall usage. So, to start, the total amount of rainwater we could have harvested in 2014 is 22,287.9 gallons.

     Though that does seem like a whole lot of water, the average household in the city could have collected 24,736 gallons. Now, that's how much we can collect but don't because of storage issues--though we can fill almost to our full capacity on just one storm. Which brings up another issue: practicality. There are two things to consider: how many tanks and where. There is a balance between having too few tanks--thus not storing enough--and having too large of a tank--never collecting to full capacity and having wasted space (and money). A harvesting guide I have used has information on how to estimate how much tank space you need based on roof size (don't fret, I'll cover that soon). The other issue is space. As shown in the last post, even just 1000 gallon tanks are pretty big and people may not have the yard space to put the amount they need. One idea I had is to put it under the ground or the house (more useful if you're in the early stages of building and incorporating it into the initial plans). Just food for thought. Have any other ideas? Feel free to share them in the comments! 
Anyways, the data for the amount of water used per month since February 2012 is as follows:

Billing Periods Number of Days Daily Usage Total Usage 02/2015  30  119.33  3,580.00  01/2015  29  100.00  2,900.00  12/2014  32  118.75  3,800.00  11/2014  31  109.03  3,380.00  10/2014  28  107.14  3,000.00  09/2014  38  114.47  4,350.00  08/2014  30  84.00  2,520.00  07/2014  29  158.62  4,600.00  06/2014  34  146.18  4,970.00  05/2014  28  130.00  3,640.00  04/2014  30  106.67  3,200.00  03/2014  28  130.71  3,660.00  02/2014  32  128.13  4,100.00  01/2014  31  54.19  1,680.00  12/2013  31  135.81  4,210.00  11/2013  29  124.83  3,620.00  10/2013  31  143.55  4,450.00  09/2013  28  142.61  3,993.00  08/2013  33  215.06  7,097.00  07/2013  30  504.33  15,130.00  06/2013  32  780.63  24,980.00  05/2013  36  259.17  9,330.00  04/2013  29  172.41  5,000.00  03/2013  28  146.79  4,110.00  02/2013  28  163.21  4,570.00  01/2013  36  116.94  4,210.00  12/2012  27  163.33  4,410.00  11/2012  35  206.00  7,210.00  10/2012  25  160.00  4,000.00  09/2012  31  150.97  4,680.00  08/2012  32  152.50  4,880.00  07/2012  30  348.00  10,440.00  06/2012  30  268.33  8,050.00  05/2012  32  199.38  6,380.00  04/2012  30  147.67  4,430.00  03/2012  28  148.21  4,150.00  02/2012  29  137.24  3,980.00

     According to the city, our average water usage per day was approximately 118 gallons. When I divided that by the number of humanoids living in our home (excluding the guinea pig, whose water consumption is negligible), I found that each of us used about 30 gallons per day. Now you may be thinking "wow that's a lot for one person!" Or you might think something different. You know, I'm not you. Regardless, I don't mean to toot my own horn here but think that is actually fairly impressive considering that, from what I heard, the average amount of water used daily per capita is close to 100 gallons. An optimal amount, however, would be about half of that.
     Now to return to the graph, to break it up into another applicable form, we did not have a garden for most of 2012 (which explains the fairly moderate to low amount of water used). However, until September 2013, we did create a garden but had not yet installed a rainwater collection system. This explains the absurdly large amount of city water we used in June (almost 25,000 gallons). Finally, after installing the harvesting system in September of 2013, there is a drop in how much city water is used. All in all, this shows how rainwater harvesting can save a bucket load (ha!), especially economically. Incentives, people, incentives! 
     To put exact numbers, I took the average amount of water per day for the three years. Then I compared the periods before vs. after we installed the system.

Total Daily: 118 gals.
After installation Daily: 119 gals.
Before installation Daily: 233.7 gals. 

     Therefore, installing a rain harvesting system saved us 114.7 gallons per day. Again, incentives, I tell you! Furthermore, in 2014, we used 42,900 gallons of (city) water-- even with the rain harvesting system installed. To meet that amount with rainfall, it would have to rain approximately 35 inches throughout the year, which is even more than what Richard Hereford's report predicted (22 inches/ year). Let's consider this: we live in a desert. Yet many of us live like we live somewhere, well, that isn't a desert. If we had to move somewhere wetter to sustain this amount of consumption, a good option might be Seattle! Getting just under 40 inches a year, it is one of the wettest cities in the U.S. and would have more than enough to sustain that lifestyle.

     But what if moving is not an option? How can we manage our water use more wisely and cut down on usage? Well, to quote my father, here are some ideas:

• Only flush "solids" and learn to live proudly with liquid wastes
• Shower only on days that don't start with the letters "S" and "T", and use a 5-gallon bucket to catch the grey water and use it to flush those solids
• Landscape the yard to maximize surface runoff from impervious landscape surfaces into garden areas
• Wash clothes only on days of the months that start with the letter "W"
• Wash all dishes by hand and use only biodegradable soap, then use rinse and wash water to water outdoor/indoor plants
• No car washing
• Use a cup of water to brush teeth

                         - The Terrific Ted

Some ideas I had:

• You don't need a cup of water to brush you teeth..
• Use a water filter in your fridge. That way, you don't need to waste a whole lot of water  waiting for it to get cold
• Turn water off during taking showers when it is not a necessity (e.g. when applying soap)

     Finally, regardless of what you might call it--the can, the porcelain throne, le loo--60% of household water everyday goes towards flushing the toilet. Since the Energy Policy Act of 1992, all standard toilets in the U.S. have to flow with 1.6 gallons or less--a 68% drop from the 5 gallons used before. Smart move, I must say. Regardless, if we cut back on how much water is used towards this household item (flushing less or using a lower flow) can have a major impact on daily water used.

     After plugging in our roof size and Herefords predicted precipitation into the equation used in previous weeks (Rainfall (in)*0.623*roof/ catchment Area (ft^2)*runoff coefficient), I discovered that with our roof size (smaller than the average, mind you) and future precipitation based on Hereford's report, we can collect 26,649 gallons. This averages to about 74 gals. for the entire house per day and 18 gallons for each of us. Many of us may think it impossible to live off this amount of water each day but  believe it or not, although this is only about 3 1/2 Home Depot buckets, this is the same amount of water as daily per capita consumption in Israel! This just goes to show how it is possible to live off a greatly reduced water budget. Finally, to wrap this post up, the average amount of water used per capita in the United Arab Emirates (which receives the same if not less precipitation than Israel) is 132 to 182 gallons per day. Holy cucamonga! They get little to no rainfall and yet use almost 9 times the amount of Israel! To be exact they consume 82% above the global average. They have the mula to continue in this way (desalinization), but it does not seem sustainable in my opinion...
     Finally, if the average family in Flagstaff continues to use their current amount of daily water consumption, there will not be enough rainfall in the future to sustain that lifestyle (at least as a the only source). However, I believe that if citizens of Flagstaff alter and limit how they use their water, it is possible to sustain that way of life with rainwater harvesting. Also, I hope to put in the statistics I found last week to see if those predictions will also bring in enough rain.
     Well, this concludes the first part of week 5. Again, this post might have been a bit off course but thank you all, again, for reading and I hope to hear from you in the comments! :)
                   -Lia
     

Week 4

Welcome back!

     Your weekly dose of rainwater is here! For this week I finished measuring the houses in the Fox Glenn neighborhood which add up to about 340 houses! Now, the reason I measured all these houses is to take the average size (which hopefully represents the average household in Flagstaff) and plug that amount in to the equation I mentioned before:

Rainfall (in) x 0.623 x Roof/ catchment Area (ft^2) x Runoff Coefficient

Based on the house measurements, the average rooftop size in square feet is 2,270.20 ft^2! This equation will give me the amount of rainfall (in gallons) the average person can collect in a given year. The major variable here will be the amount of rainfall. As I discussed in the last post, I took data from the Pulliam and 4SW stations and took the averages for each year for the past 30 years, 15 years, and each decade and made each into graphs. Going back to the equation, I took the total amount of precipitation for 2014 (18.41 in.) and plugged it into the equation to get the amount of water you could collect in our current climate. Here's what I found if, in our perfect little world, we could collect 95% of the water:

18.41 in x .623 x 2,270.20 x .95

= (drum roll please...)

24,736 gallons!

¡Ay caramba! That is a may-yan of water! That word translates to "a lot" or "abundance of" in Vulcan (as a tribute to the recently deceased Leonard Nimoy). Now this is how much you could have collected last year but on the topic of practicality, if a 1000 gallon tank is this size:

-You can ignore Mr. Joe Shmoe (although, he is a very intelligent Joe Shmoe if he has a water tank..)-

Imagine having 24 of those around your home! So, figuring out how all of this can relate to the average person is something I need to research in future weeks..

     Next, I made my own, hand-drawn (yes, I did use a real pen) graphs and created my own estimated trend. However, I continued that trend in to the next 5-10 years (2020-2025) and where it met with the years 2020 and 2025, I traced a dotted line back to the y-axis (precip. in inches) to find what might be the total precipitation for that year. I did this for graphs of the decade averages, totals for each year 15 and 30 years ago. Doing this I found that:

For decade graph: 2020: 15.9 in ; 2025: 14.8 in

For 15 year graph*: 2020: 22.7 in ; 2025: 24.5 in 

*Remember that the 15 year graph showed an increasing trend

For 30 year graph: 2020: 13.45 in ; 2025: 12.5 in

Because I am essentially trying to predict the future, there is definitely going to be some variability. That's why I created an "upper bound" (maximum, best case amount of predicted precip.) and a "lower bound" (the minimum, worst case amount of precip.). So this creates a range of amount of rainwater we could receive depending on climate change, emissions, etc. I chose to use the amounts/ data in the decade graphs as the upper bound, and those in the 30 year graphs as the lower bound. I hope to read more on a report by Hereford (I know, you're probably thinking what I did, "is that even a name? Or is it just another part of speech? Like 'Hereford, we will name him Florfinschmorp!'"). Nonetheless, in his report, he calculates his own average precipitation from 1950-2014, which I might uses as another upper bound. When I plug all these numbers into the equation (hey, its easier than integrals!) I predicted that in 2020, the most/ optimal amount of rainwater (using data from the decade graph) you can collect in one year is: 21,363.5 gallons with the minimum you can collect being 18,071.6 gallons.

By 2025, the amount you can collect can range from 19,885.5 gal to 16,795.2 gal.

Now you might be thinking "but, Lia, that's a lot of water! You just said Joe Shmoe would have trouble storing it all!" Well you are every correct, inquisitive reader, that is a lot of water! But this research really puts it into perspective when you have to think about spreading all of that out over a year's time! Another thing to consider is that yearly precip. isn't distributed evenly throughout the year, we have dry and monsoon seasons. That means that the water you collect in the wetter months needs to be spread out over the dryer months, when you get little to no rainfall. I hope to look more into this when I research practicality. 

     However there is hope for us up in the mountains! Down in Tuscon there is an ingenious man by the name of Brad Lancaster, who can fulfill practically all of his water needs (except his dishwasher) with the rain that falls on his roof! I think that's pretty incredible and hopeful for us considering that Tuscon only received 1/3 the amount of precipitation that we do! Awesome!

     Now, to wrap things up, my dad brought up a very interesting hypothesis as to why more precip. was collected at Pulliam than at 4SW (he is scientist after all, so he is pretty darn good at hypothesizing). He told me that an increased amount of aircraft activity over the years and increased condensation to due to different chemicals being emitted by more and more planes. This then shows an increasing trend in the graph. I myself am still confused as to the exact science behind his hypothesis but when I find out, I'll be sure to share it :) However, my rebuttal is pointing out that this trend is still prevalent at Wupatki and Sunset Crater, both far from any airport. Do you have hypothesis as to why there is an increase? Be sure to share it in the comments!

     Well, this is it for now, but I hope you enjoyed reading my weekly report!

And as always, thanks for reading! :)

                             -Lia

Week 3

Hello my fellow Americans!

     This post is going to be substantially longer and dryer (pineapple?) than those in the past as there are a lot of graphs and technical things. But bare with me, learning is cool if you stay in school! Ha see what I did? I just made that rhyme up myself!
     I apologize for making my 3rd week post so late (yes, it is the beginning of the 4th week), but I did use today's snow day to catch up on work.
     First, I got equations for how to measure how much rainwater we can actually collect from our roofs (obviously, one of the most important life questions always burning at the back of our minds). In a rainwater harvesting manual created by U of A students, the amount of rain we can collect is:

Rainfall (in) x 0.623 x Roof/ catchment Area (ft^2) x Runoff Coefficient

     The runoff coefficient is what percent of the rainfall can be harvested, depending on the different materials the rain runs off of (e.g. roof vs. paving vs. gravel). The .623 refers to how many gallons are in one inch of rain per 1000 square feet (623 gal). This equation will be helpful when I measure rooftops.

     This past week, I got data on precipitation for the last 30 years (1985-2014), recorded at two different "stations" in and around the city (Flagstaff Pulliam Airport and 4SW). I will get those spreadsheets up and running asap! I do have to give huge credit to my father for finding the records and Ms. Vaughan for helping throughout the day, because I do have to admit, I did end up staring for several long minutes in pure awe at the majestic space table at which we had our last group meeting... Well, since I'm giving you readers my full attention, I then took those values and calculated the monthly, decadely (is that a real thing?), and overall averages and compared to the two station. Using excel graphed all that junk and "drew" a linear trend through each. Here's what I discovered for Pulliam: the averages for each year:

Each decade:

Past 15 years:

Averages for 4SW:
Each year:

Each decade:

Past 15:

     First (as you can see with your fabulous eyeballs), although many of the points seem very spread out and sporadic--especially in the 30 year graphs--most of these trends show a decrease in precipitation (oof..). To quote the Magnificent Meilbeck, "Muy mal!" Now, the trend of the point being seemingly random, this is mainly due to the fact that the climate of Flagstaff has a very high variance from year to year. I suppose this can be seen throughout a single year too--I mean c'mon, blizzard one minute, 80º the next? What's the deal weather gods?! Getting technical, I used standard deviation on the averages at each station with each approximately 6.5. For all of you who are not math geeks, standard deviation (usually associated with variance) discovers how spread out data points are from the mean. Anywho, both of these stations also showed nearly identical trends. But one interesting thing I noticed is how that trend (based on the averages) actually increased at Pulliam! I hope to discover why, exactly, this is the case but one hypothesis I have is that Pulliam may be more exposed than 4SW, and thus is able to collect more precipitation on average! Finally, these graphs not only show recorded precip. but also that though the two stations represent very similar data, there is still variance between the two.
     My last point about variation, one thing to take into consideration is the rainshadow effect. I'm not the only one seeing that huge mountain to the north right? Well, the main idea behind this is that warm, moist air is pushed up the side of a mountain (in our case, usually from the South or Southwest). It then cools and condenses, creating clouds, from which all of that water in the air falls. Now, the air keeps moving, it plays by its own rules cause it ain't got time for any shenanigans. It has places to be, people! But this air is now dry so the other side of the mountain gets little to no precipitation. This can definitely be seen in the reports from Wupatki and Sunset Crater stations.
Wupatki:

Sunset Crater:

The precip. decrease is definitely sharper here, due to the effect I described above! Any exposed groundwater is also more quickly evaporated in this area because of the dry wind, making it a more arid landscape. So the Pulliam and 4SW are more representative of the city of Flagstaff rather than Doney Park or other northern communities. Later on, I hope to calculate the exact trend and utilize it to predict a range of precipitation for the next 10 years.

Alright, almost done guys!
     The past week, I have also been working on measuring rooftops in the Fox Glenn neighborhood.

     I chose this neighborhood rather than "Townsite" because: 1) it's newer therefore there are slightly less tress obstructing rooftops and 2) it has more medium sized homes, and thus, represents the "average" home for Flagstaff. Furthermore, I use tools in Google Earth Pro to place points on each roof, creating some freaky polygon, the area of which is calculated for me! Psh, measuring things by hand was so 2000... Anywho, amazing examples from yours truly:

Pretty neat, huh? 

     One problem I came across is that trees covering certain roofs and poor resolution made it difficult to get more accurate measurements I will take the average and use the rainfall equation above to calculate the average amount of rain the plebeians of Flagstaff can harvest!
     Well, though this post was very technical, I hope you found that helpful and informative! Thank you for taking the time to read this and please feel free to leave a comment :)
                               -Lia

Week 2

Welcome back everyone!

     Last week on Rainwater and You: the unanswered questions and mysteries! Water and cows? Connection, coincidence, or conspiracy? Why do kids love cinnamon toast crunch? And the most fundamental of them all: where is rainwater harvesting when we need it the most and can it save us?
     I apologize if this post is more dry and lacking in dorky humor than the last, the research is much more nitty-gritty.
     This past week, I researched average precipitation for Flagstaff for the past decade and got more detes on the predicted shortages! First off, according to the report Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study - Executive Summary by the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation the amount of water available in the Colorado River Basin over the next 50 years are uncertain and are dependent on several factors. First, I don't mean to name drop but I did meet the former Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar (he told me to call him Ken), which was pretty dang sweet. Anyways, they continue to say that "the potential impacts of future climate change and variability" contribute to the uncertainties. Now what in the world does this mean? What these smart scientists are saying is that because we are not 100% certain about how climate change will affect the globe and that there are numerous possible scenarios, we are also uncertain as to how future water supplies will be affected. Speaking more about the different scenarios, they outline four broad-range outcomes regarding future supply. The first is the Observed Resampled (OR). In this scenario, future "hydrologic trends" and variabilities are similar to those of about the past 100 years. The second is the Paleo Resampled (PR). This predicts that the trends and variabilities represent those of a much long period--approximately 2,500 years. In the Paleo Conditioned (PC), the trends and variabilities will be similar to the wet-dry states of the PR period but with magnitudes of the OR period. The final scenario is the Downscaled GCM Projected. In this, the climate will continue to warm and the natural flow (amount of flow in the river if all the extracted water was returned) will drop by 9%.
     Following this trend, there will also be an increase in frequency and duration of droughts and droughts lasting 5+ years will happen 50% of the time within the next 50 years. So in conclusion, the GCM scenario predicts that there will be continued warming across the Basin, a trend towards drying increased evapotranspiration, and decreased snow pack as a higher percentage of precipitation falls as rain. Though the Colorado River itself does not contribute to Flagstaff, these trends might be able to apply to overall climate and yearly precipitation.
     With the average precipitation, according to the city's report on climate, Flagstaff has two periods: winter (November-April) and summer/monsoon (July-August). Furthermore, it reports the average precipitation is 21.77 inches/year, saying that the average period to measure climate is 30 years. NOAA has taken the same statistics from the same length of time (1971-2000) and discovered that, as an average, the highest amount of precipitation is February-March (most snowfall) and July-August (monsoon). Considering how bipolar weather can be here in Flagstaff (snowing in June? Seriously?!), I'm surprised there is a definite pattern! Here is the graph of average precip. and temperature:

Links: http://drought.unl.edu/archive/climographs/FlagstaffANC.htm and http://drought.unl.edu/archive/climographs/pdf/Flagstaff.pdf

Furthermore, they predicted that there will be a 0-10% reduction in average annual precipitation when compared to the 1971-2000 trend with less frequent but heavier precipitation events. Finally, coming back to the city's report, a characterization of the Colorado Plateau/ Flagstaff is high variability in precip. and temp., partly due to El Nino/La nina (which will also kills people and burns down trees), but no significant trend in precipitation within the last 50-100yrs (I told you, its all over the place, man). In the next post, I hope to get more numbers on specific averages for several decades!
Well, thank you all again for reading even if it was dry but informative!



Until next week,
-Lia