Overall Rating	Gold
Overall Score	73.88
Liaison	Audrey McSain
Submission Date	March 20, 2023

STARS v2.2

Lehigh University
OP-21: Water Use

Status

Score

Responsible Party

3.41 / 4.00

Douglas Spengel
Associate Director Utilities and Engineering
Facilities Services

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Level of ”Physical Risk Quantity” for the institution’s main campus as indicated by the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas:

Low to Medium

Part 1. Reduction in potable water use per person

Total water withdrawal (potable and non-potable combined):

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal	81,572,865 Gallons	114,339,000 Gallons

Potable water use:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use	81,572,865 Gallons	114,339,000 Gallons

Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or three-year periods):

	Start Date	End Date
Performance Period	July 1, 2021	June 30, 2022
Baseline Period	Jan. 1, 2007	Dec. 30, 2007

If end date of the baseline year/period is 2004 or earlier, provide:

A brief description of when and why the water use baseline was adopted:

First year of readily available data.

Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users":

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Number of students resident on-site	3,422	4,608
Number of employees resident on-site	0	0
Number of other individuals resident on-site	0	0
Total full-time equivalent student enrollment	6,422	7,577.33
Full-time equivalent of employees	1,819	1,654
Full-time equivalent of students enrolled exclusively in distance education	197.99	234.33
Weighted campus users	6,887.76	7,899.75

Potable water use per weighted campus user:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per weighted campus user	11,843.17 Gallons	14,473.75 Gallons

Percentage reduction in potable water use per weighted campus user from baseline:

18.17

Part 2. Reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area

Gross floor area of building space:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Gross floor area	4,547,569 Gross square feet	4,171,377 Gross square feet

Potable water use per unit of floor area:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per unit of floor area	17.94 Gallons per square foot	27.41 Gallons per square foot

Percentage reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area from baseline:

34.56

Part 3. Reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds

Area of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Vegetated grounds	126 Acres	126 Acres

Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds	647,403.69 Gallons per acre	907,452.38 Gallons per acre

Percentage reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds from baseline:

28.66

Optional Fields

A brief description of the institution's water-related behavior change initiatives:

Eco-Reps work to educate their peers about water conservation and host events throughout the year including competitions to take shorter showers and to use only cold water when doing laundry. Similarly, Lehigh has a faculty-staff peer-to-peer outreach program called the Sustainable Office Program. Through this program, faculty/staff are encouraged to use water reduction signage in all/majority of their certified office spaces. The University staff established water-reduction goals in 2020 to be implemented over the next five years.

A brief description of the institution's water recovery and reuse initiatives:

Unmetered local wells are used in lieu of potable city water for irrigation of most athletic fields. A new laboratory building that opened this year included a rain water harvesting system to reduce the potable water needed to flush toilets, in addition to a green roof.

A brief description of the institution's initiatives to replace plumbing fixtures, fittings, appliances, equipment, and systems with water-efficient alternatives:

Low-flow fixtures are used in all new construction and major renovations, and for replacing older fixtures that fail. In August 2021, two residence halls and two academic buildings underwent plumbing-fixture retrofits to replace manually-operated higher-flow water fixtures with occupancy-sensor-operated lower-flow water fixtures. In July 2022, another residence hall and four academic buildings underwent plumbing-fixture retrofits to replace manually-operated higher-flow water fixtures with occupancy-sensor-operated lower-flow water fixtures.

Website URL where information about the institution’s water conservation and efficiency efforts is available:

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Additional documentation to support the submission:

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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Water use was impacted by COVID-19, therefore data from FY 19 was used here to be representative of a normal year. We also used the PRE-4 and PRE_5 data from FY 19 as well to be an equal comparison.