A preliminary sustainability assessment of innovative rainwater harvesting for residential properties in the UK

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) has yet to see significant uptake in UK households, primarily due to a lack of innovation in residential RWH system types. This paper presents the results of preliminary investigations into a range of traditional and innovative residential-scale RWH systems. These systems are examined using a patent application search, informal interviews with industry professionals, cost-benefit analysis and a simple multi criteria analysis (MCA). The latter examines the sustainability of the systems, based on a priori social, economic and environmental criteria. Two of the innovative systems are subject to a more detailed analysis and benchmarked against a traditional system. Results of the MCA indicate that the innovative RWH systems achieve better sustainability scores than the traditional RWH with a lower capital cost. Further research is focused on monitoring the identified systems to generate empirical datasets, in order to undertake the WLC/LCAs and to identify challenges associated with installation.