Rainwater Harvesting: Small Scale

A good starting point for golf courses is to harvest small volumes of water. This can be very easy and cheap to initially set up, and can allow the club to gain experience to help with larger projects in the future.

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The easiest option for small scale water harvesting is to harvest off existing buildings onsite, and locally store the water in large containers. This is a low cost, low tech solution to supplementing water supply. Typically, rainwater is redirected from a guttering system into storage vessels; most commonly these are water butts or intermediate bulk containers (IBC's). The capacity of such solutions is often low compared to other solutions listed on the portal. There are also slightly larger prefabricated tanks available on the market. These can be installed either above or below ground with a variety of pumps and monitoring devices if a more technical solution is required.

When designing a low tech, low cost water harvesting solutions, the following design principles should be considered;

Water storage should be situated as close to use as possible
Thought should be given to the route water would take if a leak occurred to minimise water damage and excessive surface water
System should have sufficient overflow pipes to redirect flow once storage tanks are full
Effort should be made to predict volumes of water available for harvesting before system is installed
Water storage should be kept covered to minimise debris and evaporation

Water from such storage solutions can be used for applications such as machine washing, spray tank topping up and localised plant watering. Water can also be redirected into clubhouses for small scale toilet flushing or non potable use. It can also be reused in reedbed washdown facilities, which themselves can be closed loop to reduce water requirements (see reedbed section for information). This will reduce water demand from the golf course but is unlikely to make significant reductions in overall water demand if the site has an irrigation system installed. Water can also be redirected to larger storage facilities or planted areas, such as rain gardens. Small-scale storage is a low cost and easy solution to implement. For clubs with small budgets, it is a good starter method to reduce water demand from the mains supply and provides a visual demonstration to club members of efforts being made on water security. However, due to its size, small-scale storage often does not help to contribute to stormwater control, as it is often full before intense storm events occur and such events will rapidly cause it to overflow. Additionally, stationary water storage can be a fertile breeding habitat for algae and mosquitoes and therefore it is recommended to avoid dark coloured tanks to protect them from overheating.

Costs Typical costs = £100 - £2500 Typical size = 0.5 - 5 m³ Typical yearly yield = 5 - 50 m³a year Relevant Case Studies Portmore Golf Park Warrington Golf Club