UCT Sustainability and the SDGs 2022 - Report - Page 21
• Profiling stormwater quality on campus, with a view to
reuse
• Identifying opportunities for sustainable design on
campus
• Identifying prospects for rainwater harvesting at UCT,
including:
՟ An assessment of demand for secondary quality
water (i.e. rainwater) by building type
՟ An evaluation of potential catchments
՟ A long-time series model linking rainfall, storage,
and yield for the above
՟ Preliminary economic analyses
Fertiliser-producing urinals at UCT
A team of UCT researchers led by Associate Professor
Dyllon Randall developed fertiliser-producing urinals and
installed them in UCT’s New Engineering Building in 2017.
This endeavour falls under the no-drop-wasted campus
project.
One of these urinals was active throughout 2022, saving
around 500 litres of water a day. Fertiliser produced from
the urinal was used for further research of the concept.
Stormwater ponds for
sustainable and water-resilient
cities
In 2022, the Pathways to water-resilient South African
cities (PaWS) project – a collaboration between
UCT’s Future Water Institute and the University of
Copenhagen – developed a science-driven tool
to discover and assess the possible benefits of
stormwater ponds.
These often grassy or dusty depressions create
a space to catch stormwater released through an
engineered inlet, diverting it into a pond and thus
protecting people, property and the environment
from the impact of stormwater.
However, these ponds have the potential to be
repurposed to provide multiple benefits to their
communities as a recreation space, a hotspot for
biodiversity, and aquifer recharge. To this end, the
PaWS tool identifies strategic ‘priority’ stormwater
ponds where there is high potential to unlock
multiple benefits that assist in the move towards more
sustainable and water-resilient cities.
Top: Equipment
designed for the fertiliserproducing urinals project.
Bottom: Stickers encouraging
water-saving behaviour.
See a story map of the project.
Sustainability and the SDGs 2022 – 21
