Water Master Planning

Water is our most valuable resource.  Planning and development choices have put a great demand on diminishing sources of water in recent years.  Through careful integration of water harvesting, treatment and reuse of rainwater, wastewater and stormwater within the built environment, Natural Systems International (NSI) has become an expert in Water Master Planning.

NSI has applied sustainable engineering techniques to water system design for urban developments, schools, visitor’s centers, and master-planned communities across the United States and abroad.  Water recycling, conservation, carbon neutrality of technologies, and energy efficiency are some of our primary design goals.  Our Water Master Plans are inspired by the desire to minimize or eliminate the use of potable water on a site by capturing, treating and reusing stormwater and wastewater to offset potable uses for irrigation, toilet flushing and cooling towers.

NSI is particularly experienced in the field of natural, onsite wastewater treatment.  We have designed hundreds of onsite and community systems using the ecologies of ponds, wetlands and forests.  These low-energy systems are typically centered on constructed wetlands technology.  In traditional thinking, wastewater and the systems designed to process it, have been forced to the edges of communities, where the water ‘goes away’. NSI has worked to change this notion of wastewater.  It is a high-value resource with inherent nutrients that can be reused and harnessed for a multitude of purposes.  Treatment systems can be beautiful, integrated directly into the landscape, and provide not only immense educational opportunities, but also wildlife habitat and open space.

If the design process is comprehensive, onsite wastewater treatment systems become biologically complex site attributes that allow the community to utilize a previously unseen resource in a radical way.  Over the last five years NSI has had the opportunity to demonstrate this concept in several award-winning projects.  Examples include The Desert Living Center and the Springs Preserve (in Las Vegas, NV), the Sidwell Friends Middle School (in Washington, DC) and the Willow School (in Gladstone,NJ).

Onsite wastewater treatment and reuse systems can become interesting site attributes that acknowledge the changing global conditions we are all facing.  Through our collective experience, NSI can transform potentially difficult and undesirable design conditions into unique opportunities.

NSI can provide the following engineering and design services:

• Water Master Planning;
• Onsite wastewater collection, treatment and reuse;
• Sustainable stormwater management;
• Rainwater harvesting and reuse;
• Permitting;
• Educational and graphical materials for relevant water systems;

 

Typical constructed wetland based wastewater treatment systems include:

• Primary Treatment tank(s) at the source of wastewater generation;
• Subsurface-Flow Constructed Wetlands;
• Recirculating Sand Filters;
• Mechanical Filtration and Disinfection;
• Effluent Storage;
• Land Application (drip irrigation, absorption fields, etc)
• Water Reuse for toilet flushing, irrigation, cooling towers, etc;