Meet the student – Mirela Magyar
Designing Rainwater Tanks

Mirela Magyar is a PhD student at Monash University in the Department of Civil Engineering. Her research aims to improve the design of rainwater tanks to maximise water quality delivered to the user.
One of goals of the Flagship's Water Smart Communities- New Water Cultures project is to investigate alternative future water supply systems at household level, from the technological, management and ownership perspectives. Although rainwater tanks are widely used in rural areas, their performance in urban areas is still being debated.

The processes of collecting rainwater from roofs and storing it in rainwater tanks can present potential for chemical, physical and microbiological contamination. Water quality analyses of roof water collected in Australia have found contaminants such as; ammonia, iron, lead, zinc, total and faecal coliforms and pH values have been reported outside the recommended drinking water guideline range. In addition, samples taken from sludge at the bottom of tanks have exceeded guideline values for metal, chemical and microbial parameters, supporting the assumption that contaminants are settling to the bottom of the tank.

This study will assess water quality issues and the design of urban rainwater tanks with a focus on metals content. Specifically it aims to identify the key treatment processes occurring in the residential rainwater tanks which govern the resultant physical water quality parameters in water used both inside and outside the home.

This research is a collaboration between CSIRO and Monash Universtiy with supervision provided by Clare Diaper (CSIRO) and Grace Mitchell, Ana Deletic and Tony Ladson (Monash University).

For more information:
Contact: Dr Clare Diaper 03 9252 6440, Clare.diaper@csiro.au

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