Landscapes to minimise water usage
Local plants are preferred in the landscape which does not require precipitation more than that in Istanbul. Landscape practices that do not require intensive gardening works have been put into practice recently. Gardening activities in new sustainable buildings are important examples of this new concept.
Secondly, a new garden was established on the campus following permaculture principles. The garden is one of the attempts to strengthen ecological agriculture.
Annual Water Usage
The average amount of water used in the university from various water sources is listed in the table.
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Mains supply
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Extracted from lakes (used for green fields as irrigation water)
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439 579 m3
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10% of annual water usage
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Reuse of Water with Grey Water Usage
Grey water usage was already started in new buildings. Rainwater harvesting projects were developed for the old buildings. In the following years major amount of the buildings will used recycled waters. Also artificial lake in the campus will increase the usage of grey water. ITU has started to implement greywater collection and treatment systems to minimize freshwater consumption. This infrastructure has been installing in some of the new buildings. The system has a typical package activated carbon treatment unit with the required instrumentation including flow-meter. The flow-meters measure the used greywater amount.
Minimising Water Usage with Rainwater Harvesting
At ITU, 77,000 m3/year of rainwater reaching the ITU Pond through surface runoff is withdrawn and used in green fields as irrigation water (This amount is approximately 10% of the water used in Maslak Campus). One of the methods that can be used to increase stormwater harvesting is rainwater harvesting from building roofs. For example, currently, the water obtained by rainwater harvesting from the roof of ITU Abdulhakim Sancak Mosque is used for irrigation. In line with the “Regulation on Amending the Planned Areas Zoning Regulation”, for which the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization (MEU) is in charge and is published in the Official Gazette dated 23 January 2021 and numbered 31373, rainwater harvesting from the roofs is mandatory if the roof area or parcel area is over 2000 m2.