Hawkesbury River Waterkeeper 

The University of Western Sydney, TAFE NSW Western Sydney Institute (opens in a new window) and the Hawkesbury Environment Network (HEN) (opens in a new window) have entered into a unique partnership to work together to protect the health and vitality of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. For more information, please see Hawkesbury River Waterkeeper.

UWS Water Initiatives

The UWS Water Conservation and Management program ensures compliance with water saving objectives (PDF, 87Kb) and action plans, seeks to minimise water-borne pollution discharge and aims to reduce water consumption. Since the implementation of Water Saving Action Plans water consumption on UWS Kingswood campus has decreased by 24% per EFTSL.

The Hawkesbury Water Recycling Scheme

Did you know that UWS has the capacity to recycle 700,000 kilolitres of water per year through the Hawkesbury Water Recycling Scheme (PDF, 171Kb). That's equivalent to 350 olympic sized swimming pools.

Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting to irrigate gardens and/or to provide toilet flushing is undertaken where appropriate and installations are now at almost all campuses. Major installations of large water tanks are underground on the Werrington South campus, embedded in new buildings at Parramatta and above ground on Hawkesbury and Campbelltown campuses.

Water Sensitive Urban Design

Landscape Masterplans have been developed for all campuses to provide a set of guiding principles encompassing issues such as safety through design, sustainability and water sensitive design and robustness of materials. Water sensitive gardens employ sub-surface irrigation and use carpark and avenue planting to enhance shade and character.

SURF Water Harvesting Campbelltown

The Sustainable UWS Rolling Fund (surf) program funds sustainability projects that are developed, managed and implemented by UWS staff and students. Harvesting an additional 62,000 litres of water per year by harvesting discharges from the distilled water unit at the School of Medicine.

UWS Water Research

WISER Network

The Water and Land Management Innovation and Strategy Enhancement Partnership in Peri-urban Research (WISER) Network has brought key water stakeholders together for water management cooperation at regional and national levels. This collaboration will work on water management and planning issues that are emerging due to population growth in urban areas and land use changes in peri-urban areas surrounding our major cities and towns.

Engaging Communities in Water Management Planning

The Engaging Communities in Water Management Planning research project is part of the WSROC/WiTL initiative that aims to widen the engagement of the general population to address regional water issues, from the current focus on household water use to the potential impacts of water supply constraints on environmental values, regional amenty and land uses.

Filtered Water Stations at UWS

Did you know bottled water is 500 times more expensive then tap water? Did you know that it takes approximately three litres of water to produce a 600 ml plastic bottle? Free filtered water stations are now available at Hawkesbury, Campbelltown, Bankstown and Parramatta. Grab a reusable water bottle and give the water refill stations a go.

• A map of each campus and location of the filtered water stations at UWS (opens in a new window) (PDF, 636Kb).

Water projects at other universities and colleges

• Water conservation - for example see Sustainable Stanford website
• Rainwater harvesting - for example see NC State University website
• Water consumption - for example see Arizona State University
• Bottled water facts and research - for example see Bottle Water Alliance website

• The truth about bottled water - see Youtube website
  “Warning: Some of the video material on this site contains language that may cause offence.”

If your section of UWS is addressing any of these areas or additional ones, please let us know by emailing us at sustainability@uws.edu.au