Water conservation criteria in green building evaluation systems and estimation of possible water savings in the case of application of these criteria on a detached house

In Turkey, which is still classified as a water-stressed country, the amount and proportion of water consumed as drinking and sanitary water in buildings is increasing day by day.This situation not only threatens water resources, but also leads to additional infrastructure investments and high energy costs for the treatment, supply, and removal of water to and from buildings.The aim of this study is to look at the issue in a holistic way, to identify all the measures that can be taken to save water in a building, and to estimate how much water can be saved assuming that they are applied to a real house.For this purpose, the water saving measures developed in the most well-known green building rating systems LEED, BREEAM and CASBEE systems and in the National Green Certification System YeS-TR, have been examined.The study investigated how much water could be saved if a house with a garden on a 780 m 2 plot of land in the province of Sivas was built according to the specified measures.The study showed that the annual water consumption of the house, which is 800 tonnes, can be reduced to 414 tonnes through appropriate landscaping, rainwater harvesting, grey water harvesting and the use of water-saving devices.The study can be a guide for efforts to construct new buildings in a water-saving manner, which can make a significant contribution to solving the water shortage in Turkey and reducing the costs caused using water in buildings.