PLAN 597: Planning for Water Resource ManagementDr. Jordi Honey-­‐RosesAssignment #1: Data AnalysisWater consumption in the Biological Sciences Complex:A comparison between the 3 wings.Erica MakOctober 10, 2014Overview:This analysis aims to first explore the trends and changes in water consumption ineach of the three wings of the UBC Biological Sciences Complex over a one and a halfyear period and then to compare the water usage between the three wings (Southand West Wing-­‐ renovated with water management improvements, North wing-­‐ notrenovated). Using the North wing as a control, the effectiveness of the new watermanagement system in the renovated wings and its impact on water consumptionwill be examined.Building information:The Biological Sciences Complex, originally constructed in 1950, has three wings:South (completed in 1959), West (completed in 1968) and North (completed in1974). This complex houses lecture rooms, offices and research laboratories. In2011, as part of the UBC Renew project, a program that renovates instead ofdemolishes deteriorating buildings, the Biological Sciences Complex’s South andWest wings underwent 22 months of renovation that included the followingbuilding improvements:-­‐ Seismic upgrade-­‐ New life safety systems-­‐ New back-­‐up generators to provide emergency light, ventilation, and animallife support-­‐ New fume hoods, lab furniture and storage facilities-­‐ New building HVAC system-­‐ Upgrades of existing windows and skylights-­‐ Installation of Sun Central natural daylight system-­‐ Building envelope improvements-­‐ High efficiency equipment in HVAC systemso Water source heat pumps for heating and cooling-­‐ High efficiency plumbing fixtures-­‐ Redesign of lab, office and classroom spacesThis $64 million renovation was completion in August 2011 and is expected to helpsave 15,170,313 MJ and $209853 per year. Both of the South and West wings haveapplied for LEED Gold certification and have been awarded the Canadian GreenBuilding Award in 2012.Data analysis:Raw data of water consumption used in this analysis is extracted from the Ion metersoftware. The values used is the daily recorded water usage measurement (given inm3 but converted to cm3) for each of the three wings of the Biological SciencesComplex divided by the area (m2) of each wing.The water meters are only installed after the renovation of the two wings, thereforedata before the renovated date is not available, making a before and after-­‐renovation comparison impossible.Because the before-­‐ renovation is not available, in order to find out whether watermanagement improvements made during the renovation have an impact on waterconsumption, a comparison between the un-­‐renovated North wing and therenovated South and West wing will be made. As the size of each wing is different,the daily water usage in cm3 per m2 will be used as the unit of comparison (Area ofeach wing in Appendix 1).Daily measurements were chosen as the measuring frequency for analysis becausethere are some daily measurements missing in some of the months for North wing,therefore, it would be impossible to find out the monthly water consumption for themonths with missing daily values.Bio Sciences SouthTable 1. Statistic summary of daily water consumption in Bio Sciences Southmeasured between April 10, 2013 to October 5, 2014. Water consumption valuesare measured in cm3/m2. n= 543.Daily water consumptionMean 80005.11Median 75894.47Max 182237.08Min 18612.22Range 163624.86Variance 1107210801Standard deviation 33274.78Table 3. Two-­‐tail unpaired t-­‐test for mean daily water consumption betweenBiological Sciences North and Biological Sciences West. (p<0.05)Bio Sci North Bio Sci WestMean 3808.64 2016.16Standard deviation 1217.37 1485.33Sample size 515 543t 27.22df 1056p-­‐value 4.5464E-­‐124Figure 5 illustrates that not only do the North and West wings follow a similar trendin terms of water consumption throughout the year, it also shows that daily waterconsumption in the North wing (un-­‐renovated) is consistently higher than theconsumption in the West wing (renovated). Statistically, when the mean daily waterconsumptions of the two buildings are compared, the p-­‐value is much smaller than0.05 (Table 3), which indicates that there is a greatly significant difference betweenthe means for daily water consumption in Biology Sciences North and BiologySciences West. This in an important result as it shows that the renovation in theWest wing is effective in decreasing water consumption.ConclusionBy comparing the North and West wings of the Biological Sciences Complex, we areable to see a clear decrease in daily water consumption. This is evidence that thenew water management system installed during the renovation is effectivelydecreasing water consumption in the building. Not only does this positive resultreinforce our need for better water management systems, but the success of thesystem improvement can also encourage and advocate for future renovationprojects on campus.Unfortunately, in terms of the South wing, it is impossible to evaluate theeffectiveness of the new water management system without the before-­‐renovationwater consumption data. It simply does not make sense to compare buildings withdifferent operations and different levels of water demands.APPENDIXAppendix 1. Area of the Biological Sciences Building WingsArea (m2)Biological Sciences Building-­‐ North 5577Biological Sciences Building-­‐ West 8021Biological Sciences Building-­‐ South 5534