Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater Harvesting Methods or Rain water collection

Water is an important part of our environment. In today's world, the water is highly used in the home, agriculture and factories.

As water plays important role in human life, we have to preserve it for our future generation.

Very little water i.e. 2.5% of fresh water is available on earth surface which we can use for human necessities. Remaining water is in oceans and can’t be use for drinking or any other human purposes.

The ground water level is falling day by day due to various reasons like deforestation and ecological imbalance.

Now, in most rural areas, the water level has started to decrease under the ground because of excessive use of underwater. Also, urban areas started to face water scarcity problem were many factories are located.

In such critical condition, we have to think about water conservation as soon as possible because water is life and once it extinct there will be no life.

In such a worst situation we can see rain as a water source, which can be use for domestic and commercial applications.

What is Rainwater Harvesting?

Rainwater harvesting is the collection and storage of rainwater in natural resources or artificially designed resources to prevent water runoff and meet future water scarcity.

In rainwater harvesting methods, it is necessary to store water before it reaches the soil or mix with ground water.

Rainwater Harvesting

These process in harvesting involves not only stopping rainwater but also making it clean.

Rainwater harvesting is not a modern technology, in old era or in history many civilizations used it to fulfill the water requirement of their people.

Now gradually new technology is also being used in these water collection methods, so that rain water harvesting can be done in an easy and best way.

The amount of water harvesting is influenced by factors such as the frequency and the amount of rainfall, how rainwater is collected, and the size of the resources to collect the rain water.

Necessity of rainwater harvesting

The following points shows that why rainwater harvesting is necessary:

• Surface water cannot meet water demand of all applications.

• Everyone is dependent on ground water for their every requirement.

• Groundwater levels are steadily decreasing due to deforestation, rapid urbanization, etc.

• Rainwater preserves the water in natural water resources and hence maintain water level.

• In rainy days It reduces the possibility of water logging on roads, reduces the risk of soil erosion and improves the water quality.

Methods of Rainwater Harvesting

There are many ways to harvest rainwater and some of these methods have proved very effective in harvesting rainwater.

Below are some of the best methods of rain water harvesting;

• Surface Water Collection Systems

Surface water is the water that starts to flow to the lower areas of the ground, after falling of rain on the ground.

The method of preventing or collecting surface water before it goes into dirty drains is called surface water collection.

Through large drainage pipes, the rainwater is stored in wells, rivers, ponds, etc.

• Roof water collection

In this method, rain water is stored or collected at roofs of an apartment, office, factory or any other building.

For this method rainwater collection roof is specially created so no rain water should be waste. When it rains, the collected water from roof is passed to water collecting tanks i.e. rain collection tank with the help of pipes or hoses.

This water is clean and can be consumed after adding or treating with a little bleaching powder.

• Dams or Water Reservoirs

Dams are created on rivers or ponds which collects the rain waters in very large quantity. This water further can be used for domestic purposes, agriculture irrigation and for electricity generation.

Water Collected in Dam

• Underground Tanks or Pits

In this process rainwater is passed to an underground pit, which increases the amount of ground water.

Normally water on the surface of earth get evaporates and we can’t use this water fully.

But if we pass the rain water inside the soil, the water will do not evaporates and we can use it for a long time with the help of water pumps.

Advantages of Rainwater Harvesting

• This harvested rainwater you can use for your daily work like cooking, cleaning, washing, etc.

• Industries can use this water for their product manufacturing activities and in boilers for steam generations.

• This water can be used for irrigation in agriculture activities. Rainwater irrigation system should be implemented. Collected water from dams or ponds can be pass to agriculture land with the help of canals.

Rainwater Harvesting for Irrigation

• Normally the clean or mostly drinking water is used in construction of building. Which a waste of water. We can use harvested rain water for construction of buildings.

• Biggest advantage is that we can save money. Yes, we don’t have to pay for water bills and electricity bills.

Precautions to be consider

• The collected rain water should be properly treated or filtered to remove impurities before consumption.

• Rain water should be stored in such containers, which do not create poisonous elements when exposed to sunlight.

Conclusion

Demand for water supply increases, especially in urban areas, due to the constantly increasing level of urbanization and industrialization.

The ground water level is falling day by day due to various reasons like deforestation and ecological imbalance.

Water harvesting is very helpful and caters to various human and environmental needs such as boosting the ground water level, reducing the water supply bill and providing the water supply anytime.


Picture Sources - free images from Pixabay and Pexels.