Overall Rating	Gold
Overall Score	65.91
Liaison	Elizabeth MacKenzie
Submission Date	June 25, 2024

STARS v2.2

University of Iowa
OP-21: Water Use

Status

Score

Responsible Party

3.09 / 6.00

Brinda Shetty
Program Manager
Office of Sustainability and the Environment

"---" 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:

High

Part 1. Reduction in potable water use per person

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

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal	831,874,000 Gallons	773,112,883 Gallons

Potable water use:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use	686,890,000 Gallons	749,311,000 Gallons

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

	Start Date	End Date
Performance Period	Jan. 1, 2023	Dec. 31, 2023
Baseline Period	Jan. 1, 2005	Dec. 31, 2005

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:

2005 was the year that the University of Iowa joined the Chicago Climate Exchange (which was disbanded in 2010), and as such, 2005 serves as a baseline for many of the measures of sustainability for the University.

Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users":

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Number of students resident on-site	6,415	5,496
Number of employees resident on-site	15	14
Number of other individuals resident on-site	5	0
Total full-time equivalent student enrollment	29,140	26,775
Full-time equivalent of employees	10,982	8,895
Full-time equivalent of students enrolled exclusively in distance education	1,958	739.93
Weighted campus users	30,235.50	27,575.05

Potable water use per weighted campus user:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per weighted campus user	22,718.00 Gallons	27,173.51 Gallons

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

16.40

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	14,912,991 Gross square feet	11,200,219 Gross square feet

Potable water use per unit of floor area:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per unit of floor area	46.06 Gallons per square foot	66.90 Gallons per square foot

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

31.15

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

Area of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Vegetated grounds	1,617 Acres	1,534 Acres

Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds	514,455.16 Gallons per acre	503,984.93 Gallons per acre

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

-2.08

Optional Fields

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

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

Non-potable water is water used for irrigation and other applications that do not require treated water. The University of Iowa has several examples of non-potable water collection, including underground rainwater capture and storage as well as irrigation water drawn from ponds. In 2009, the University of Iowa Environmental Coalition students built a student garden on Hawkeye Drive that utilizes non-potable water to irrigate its plants. The University of Iowa Finkbine Golf Course is irrigated by pumping water from an on-site irrigation pond. When the pond falls below suitable levels, water is pumped into the pond via the Jordan Aquifer. The University of Iowa is currently constructing a new biomedical research building on the west end of campus. The new building will employ a new 20,000 gallon water storage tank that will store rain water for irrigation. Rain water from gutters and roof drains will be channeled into the storage tank via underground piping.

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

We added an RO system to the water plant in June of 2021, and as a result, we have 14.5% water loss through RO concentrate.

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:

Part 3 of this credit uses baseline 2017 instead of 2015 for vegetated area. This is due to availability of data. We expect that the difference between the 2015 and 2017 figures are negligible because total campus growth is very slow (less than 1% per year or 200,000 square feet on average)