• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.53-62
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• 2014

This paper investigates whether the use of Rainwater Harvesting Systems (RWHSs) to provide water for washing machines in Hong Kong residential buildings would be financially attractive. In such systems, rainwater is accumulated and reused for doing laundry, garden irrigation, flushing toilets, and even drinking. Thus, the analysis of RWHSs' financial feasibility is essential for construction projects. RainCycle is used to validate financial feasibility, considering particular circumstances and data relevant to the Hong Kong context. A range of different scenarios by adjusting three factors are evaluated: catchment area, water demand, and discount rate. It is suggested that $2,000m^2$ would be a suitable catchment area in a typical Hong Kong residential building and it is demonstrated how water demand and discount rate influence the financial performance of RWHSs. In particular, the financial performance of RWHSs is sensitive to discount rates. The results suggest that the RWH system would be worthwhile for buildings with a lower number of floors, but would barely achieve financial validation in Hong Kong's super high-rise residential buildings.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2013.01a
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• pp.386-389
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• 2013

Under climate change and urbanization, rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems are emerging as an alternative source of water supply because of growing concern about water sustainability. RWH systems can satisfy the various watering needs and provide the environmental benefits of lessening the damages from flood, drought, and runoff. The economic success of a RWH system is vitally concerned with the determination of the design capacity of storage tank to be built in the system. The design capacity is determined by the factors of average annual rainfall, period of water scarcity, and water price during the whole life-cycles. Despite the high uncertainties inherent in these factors, the current engineering design of RWH system construction often assumes that storage tanks should be built all at once. This assumption implicitly ignores the managerial flexibility in responds to the future as new information comes out-the right to build storage tanks stage by stage depending on the evolution of demand. This study evaluates the value of a multistage storage tank construction using a real option approach. A case study involving a typical RWH system construction in Jeonju, the Republic of Korea is conducted. The managerial flexibility obtained from the real option perspective allows engineers to develop investment strategies to better cope with the issue of water sustainability.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.333-341
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• 2014

To supply substitution water, $2m^3$ of capacity of rainwater harvesting system is designed calculating rainfall, catchment area and LPCD and has a effects to 34.4% of substitution water supply and 237 days of service day. Rainwater of drinking water quality was judged to be suitable except for bacteria problem, however, groundwater is exceeded in nitrate nitrogen, the evaporation residue and also bacteria, which means that the rainwater is suitable for use as water supply. In addition, to consider cost-benefit ratio, economic analysis conducted. The result is that B/C ratio of RWHS (10 years) is 1.70. It means total benefit is bigger than cost. Except to social factor in this study, there are a variety of benefit such as flood or drought prevention, educational effects inspiring water conservation awareness.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.223-230
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• 2009

Most urban water management systems are becoming vulnerable to flooding and drought due to the climate change (CC), urbanization and energy shortage. Despite of poor water management circumstances caused by extremely uneven annual rainfall and hilly terrain, traditionally we have made a sound and sustainable life based on our own philosophy and technologies which copes with our rigid environment. In this study a new paradigm of rainwater management is suggested and multipurpose and creative rainwater harvesting and management (RWHM) systems are introduced providing several case studies such as rainfall storage drainage (RSD) system, rainwater infiltration facilities and star city RWHM system. This new RWHM paradigm leads Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) in the Republic of Korea to change regulations and politics for the integrated RWHM. Finally, RWHM is expected to improve the safety, efficiency, energy consumption of urban water infrastructure, to reduce urban heat island phenomenon and, furthermore, to contribute in finding solutions for worldwide water issues and to adapt CC.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 2013

Vietnam is a developing country with the rate around 5%-6% per year, especially in urban areas. Rapidly developed urban areas lead to stress for infrastructure and the water supply is also stressed. In Hanoi city, total water capacity from the manufactories is around one million cubic meters per day and almost the entire main water source is groundwater but it is not enough to supply all of Hanoi's people, especially in the summer. A demo project is implemented in Hanoi University of Civil Engineering (HUCE) to produce drinking water by using the rainwater and membrane system and supply for people. In this project, rainwater is collected on the rooftop of the lecture building with an area of around $500m^2$ and $100m^3$ volumetric rainwater tanks. Afterwards, the rainwater is treated by the micro-membrane system and supplied to the tap water. Total cost for construction, technology and operation in the first year is around USD 48,558. In the long-term (15 yr) if HUCE invests in the same system, with $20m^3$ volumetric storage tank, it can provide drinking water for 500 staffs in every year. The cost of investment and operation for this system is lower than 30% compared to buying bottled water with the price USD 1.8/bottle. The drinking water parameters after treatment are pH, 7.3-7.75; turbidity, 0.6-0.8 NUT; total dissolved solids, 60-89 mg/L; coliform, 0; heavy metal similar with water quality in the bottle water in Vietnam.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.191-199
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• 2012

Rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS), one of measures for on site rainwater management, have been promoted by laws, regulations and guidelines and have been increased. However, more evaluation of economic feasibility on RWHS is still needed due to seasonal imbalance of rainfall and little experiences and analysis on design and operation of RWHS. In this study, we investigated tank capacity of RWHS to secure economic validity considering catchment area and water demand, which is affected by building scale. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the effect of design factors, cost items and increase rate of water service charge on economic feasibility. The BCR (benefit cost ratio) is proportional to the increase in tank capacity. It is increased steeply in small tank capacity due to the effect of cost and, since then, gently in middle and large tank capacity. In case of 0.05 in the rate of tank volume to catchment area and 0.005 in water demand to catchment area, BCR was over one from the tank capacity of 160 $m^{3}$ taking into account of private benefits and from the tank capacity of 100 $m^{3}$ taking into account of private and public benefits. Sensitivity analysis shows that increase of water demand can improve BCR values with little cost so that it is needed to extend application of rainwater use and select a proper range of design factor. Decrease of construction and maintenance cost reduced the tank volume to secure economic validity. Finally, increase rate of water service charge had considerable impact on economic feasibility.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.740-746
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• 2010

Rainwater has been used in many countries as a way of minimizing water availability problems. Rainwater harvesting system (RHS) has been successfully implemented as alternative water supply sources even in Korea. Although RHS is an effective alternative to water supply, its efficiency is often heavily influenced by temporal distribution of rainfall. Since natural precipitation is a random process and has probabilistic characteristics, it will be more appropriate to describe these probabilistic features of rainfall and its relationship with design storage capacity as well as supply deficit of RHS. This study presents the methodology to establish the relationships between storage capacities and deficit rates using probability distributions. In this study, the real three-story building was considered and nine scenaries were developed because the daily water usage pattern of the study one was not identified. GEV, Gumbel and the generalized logistic distribution ware selected according to the results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Chi-Squared test. As a result, a set of curves describing the relationships under different exceedance probabilities were generated as references to RHS storage design. In case of the study building, the deficit rate becomes larger as return period increases and will not increase any more if the storage capacity becomes the appropriate quantity. The uncertainties between design storage and the deficit can be more understood through this study on the probabilistic relationships between storage capacities and deficit rates.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.634-645
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• 2011

A newly developed rainwater harvesting (RWH) system reliability model is evaluated for roof area of buildings in Haeundae District of Busan. RWH system is used to supply water for toilet flushing, back garden irrigation, and air cooling. This model is portable because it is based on a non-parametric precipitation generation algorithm using a markov chain. Precipitation occurrence is simulated using transition probabilities derived for each day of the year based on the historical probability of wet and dry day state changes. Precipitation amounts are selected from a matrix of historical values within a moving 30 day window that is centered on the target day. Then, the reliability of RWH system is determined for catchment area and tank volume ranges using synthetic precipitation data. As a result, the synthetic rainfall data well reproduced the characteristics of precipitation in Busan. Also the reliabilities of RWH system for each of demands were computed to high values. Furthermore, for study area using the RWH system, reduction efficiencies for rooftop runoff inputs to the sewer system and potable water demand are evaluated for 23%, 53%, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.99-109
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.764-768
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• 2010

수자원의 근간이 되는 빗물의 효율적 사용을 위하여 최근 우리나라도 빗물이용시설(Rainwater Harvesting System, RHS)이 많이 도입되고 있는 실정이다. 이런 RHS의 효율적인 설계 및 유지 관리를 위해서는 해당 건물의 물 사용량과 집수되는 빗물의 양이 고려된 적정 저류용량 산정이 필수이다. RHS의 적정 저류용량 산정을 위해서는 강수량에 따른 저류용량과 부족량간의 확률적 관계를 제시하는 것이 중요하다. 이에 강우와 물 사용량의 실측값을 이용하여 저류용량에 따른 부족률을 도출하는 모의모형을 구축하였으며, 그 결과를 통하여 저류용량과 부족률간의 관계를 확률 분포로 제시하였다. 적용대상은 서울대학교 34동이며 적합 확률분포로는 Generalized Logistic 분포임을 검증하였고 재현기간에 따른 저류용량별 부족률을 제시하였다. 그 결과 $18m^3$ 이상의 저류용량을 가지는 RHS 설치는 재현기간을 막론하고 효율성이 없음을 판단하였다. 본 연구를 통해 구축된 모의 모형과 재현기간에 따른 저류용량별 부족률은 RHS의 설계와 의사결정에 관련된 이 해당사자들의 직관적 판단 도구로 활용이 가능할 것이다. 향후, 좀 더 신뢰성 있는 자료를 산정하기 위해서는 일강우량에 따른 일화장실 물사용량의 실측자료를 모의 모형에 적용시켜야 할 것이다.