Rainwater Harvesting- Solution for Water Crisis

The demand for water is increasing day-by-day and government fails to supply water and meet the increasing demand. Rainwater harvesting is not a new concept or technique, it is practiced by our ancestors for irrigation and feeding cattle or livestock. Apartments are mushrooming all over our cities with the boom in the housing sector. By designing systems carefully and investing in sustainable technologies, apartments can provide supplementary water requirement. Apartment owners association can play vital role in setting up or installing rainwater harvesting in apartment.

Role of Apartment Owners Association

Apartment owners can put pressure to builder while constructing apartment to implement rainwater harvesting either for direst use or for recharging groundwater. Apartment owners can form an association for implementing rainwater harvesting system in the apartment. The cost can be divided equally by all owners. The cost of installing a rainwater harvesting is high but when comparing the amount saved on water bill for future, this cost is cheaper or nothing. There must be a separate pipeline for rainwater and for groundwater. Nowadays each apartment will have its own apartment owners association who play vital role in managing properties and working for welfare of residents of apartment. An active apartment owners association can easily implement rainwater harvesting and your association can become role model for apartments in your neighborhood or in your city.

Rainwater Harvesting System

Rainwater harvesting system is collection of rainwater from the surface which directly receives rainfall. It can be a paved area like a terrace or courtyard of a building, or an unpaved area like a lawn or open ground. A channel or gutters are required to transfer rainwater collected from rooftops to storage tanks or recharge pit. One or more down-pipes are connected to gutters to transfer rainwater from rooftops or terrace. The size of the gutter should be according to the flow during the highest intensity rain.

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When collecting rainwater it is very important to keep the water clean and safe. The first spell of rain carries a relatively larger amount of pollutants from the air and catchments surface. Without a first- flush system this will be washed off the roof and directly into your rainwater tanks causing the water to become dirty and possibly dangerous. The First- Flush Diverter is installed anywhere before the inlet of the water tank and the runoff from the first spell of rain is flushed out by using a first-flush before rainwater entering to the system or storage tank. There are several possible choices to selectively collect clean water for the storage tanks. The most common is the down-pipe flap. With this flap it is possible to direct the first flush of water flow through the down-pipe, while later rainfall is diverted into a storage tank. The filter is used to remove suspended pollutants from rainwater collected over roof. A filter unit is a chamber filled with filtering media such as fiber, coarse sand and gravel layers to remove debris and dirt from water before it enters the storage tank or recharge pit.

Working of Rainwater Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting system can be broadly classified as rooftop rainwater harvesting and artificial groundwater recharging.

Rooftop rainwater harvesting is quite popular since it is quite easy to collect rainwater falling on rooftops and terrace. In rooftop harvesting, the roof becomes the catchments, and the rainwater is collected from the roof of the house/building. It can either be stored in a tank or diverted to artificial recharge system. Rainwater from roof or trace is transported using PVC gutters. These gutters will be connected to filter using down-pipes. A filter unit is a chamber filled with filtering media to remove debris and dirt from water. Rainwater storage tanks collect all filtered rainwater and keep it for future use. The tank is placed on a small platform about 18 inches high and a tap is attached to it at the bottom. This makes it easy to collect water in a bucket.

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Help desk for Rainwater Harvesting (BWSSB): 080-2334 1652, 23348848, 2334 8849 Working hours: 9 am to 6 pm