Water

The need to conserve water has been readily apparent this summer, as water levels in Washington have dropped enough for the City of Seattle to call on residents and businesses to voluntarily reduce water consumption by 10 percent. The University of Washington supports this effort, and in today's look at the Sustainability Dashboard you can see how the UW has been reducing water consumption for years.

EPA is calling for entries in its fourth annual Campus RainWorks Challenge, a green infrastructure design competition for undergraduate and graduate students.

Student teams, working with a faculty advisor, will submit design boards, a project narrative, and a letter of support describing a proposed green infrastructure project for a location on their campuses. This year student teams will be encouraged to incorporate climate resiliency into their stormwater management designs.

At one end of the Prairie Line Trail running through UW Tacoma's campus is an innovative rain water treatment facility, although it may not be immediately apparent to the casual eye.

With a new water conservation system put into place, Mercer Court is revolutionizing the way students do laundry.

HFS uses a cistern, a tank used to catch and store rainwater for the purpose of delivering laundry services to more than 1,300 students living in the apartment complex. JR Fulton, HFS's capital planning and sustainability manager, says that about 90 to 95 percent of water used in the washing machine is coming from the cistern.

By Tiffany Loh
This post was originally published on the Campus Sustainability Fund site.

Earlier this year, the CSF awarded a grand total of $105,367 to 6 projects in the first round of funding for 2015. One of the projects proposed innovative adjustments that would optimize the use of a gift Mother Nature likes to shower upon Seattle: rainwater. 

In January 2015, UW CoMotion (formerly Center for Commercialization) hosted a panel innovation leaders to discuss UW's role in regional innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth.

A group of UW oceanography students recently spent 10 days aboard UW’s large research vessel, the Thomas G. Thompson, to conduct research for their senior thesis projects. The 24 students traveled to Nootka Sound off the west coast of Vancouver Island and blogged about their daily experiences.

In an op-ed published in the LA Times titled "What do you get if you map coming climate disasters? Hello Pacific Northwest", columnist David Sarasohn interviews UW atmospheric professor Cliff Mass on the future of the Pacific Northwest serving as a refuge for Californians and others from across the country seeking relief from the impacts of climate change.

Image credit: TNT: Jeffrey P. Mayor

Two different projects from members of the UW community are using crowdfunding to help make sustainable ideas a reality.