Survey of green building water systems reveals elevated water age and water quality concerns

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dc.contributor.authorRhoads, William J.en
dc.contributor.authorPruden, Amyen
dc.contributor.authorEdwards, Marc A.en
dc.contributor.departmentCivil and Environmental Engineeringen
dc.date.accessed2016-03-17en
dc.date.accessioned2016-03-18T22:24:55Zen
dc.date.available2016-03-18T22:24:55Zen
dc.date.issued2015-11-05en
dc.description.abstractWidespread adoption of innovative water conservation strategies has potential unintended consequences for aesthetics and public health. A cross-section of green buildings were surveyed and compared to typical conventional buildings in terms of water retention time (i.e., water age), water chemistry, and levels of opportunistic pathogen genetic markers. Water age was estimated to be 2-6.7 months in an off-grid office, an average of 8 days in a Leadership in Environmental Engineering Design certified healthcare suite, and was increased to 2.7 days from 1 day due to installation of a solar "pre-heat" water tank in a net-zero energy house. Chlorine and chloramine residuals were often completely absent in the green building systems, decaying up to 144 times faster in premise plumbing with high water age when compared to distribution system water. Concentration of 16S rRNA and opportunistic pathogen genus level genetic markers were 1-4 orders of magnitude higher in green versus conventional buildings. This study raises concerns with respect to current green water system practices and the importance of considering potential public health impacts in the design of sustainable water systems.en
dc.description.notesContains supplementary information fileen
dc.description.notes2015 Royal Society of Chemistry Open Access Gold Articleen
dc.description.sponsorshipWater Research Foundationen
dc.description.sponsorshipAlfred P. Sloan Foundation. Microbiology of the Built Environment Programen
dc.description.sponsorshipNational Science Foundation (U.S.)en
dc.format.extent10 p.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationRhoads, W. J., Pruden, A., & Edwards, M. A. (2016). Survey of green building water systems reveals elevated water age and water quality concerns. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, 2(1), 164-173. doi:10.1039/C5EW00221Den
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1039/C5EW00221Den
dc.identifier.issn2053-1400en
dc.identifier.issue1en
dc.identifier.other2016_Rhoads_Survey_of_green_building_water_sys.pdfen
dc.identifier.other2016_Rhoads_Survey_supp_data.pdfen
dc.identifier.otherCBET Award 1336650en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/64962en
dc.identifier.volume2en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherThe Royal Society of Chemistryen
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unporteden
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/en
dc.titleSurvey of green building water systems reveals elevated water age and water quality concernsen
dc.title.serialEnvironmental Science: Water Research & Technologyen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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Scholarly Works, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Destination Area: Global Systems Science (GSS)