Implementing Rainwater Harvesting Systems – Although rainwater harvesting can bring many benefits to consumers and the water industry as a whole (read our previous blog here), it is not always clear how to effectively promote and increase the uptake of this practice.
RWH systems can be established relatively easily with local skills and resources, using simple and easy-to-maintain technologies that are inexpensive to install. RWH systems can be modular, allowing for expansion, reconfiguration or relocation, and can be easily retrofitted to an existing structure or built in during new construction. However, despite the many benefits, it is often difficult for households to implement rainwater harvesting. The initial installation cost of RWH systems in residential housing is relatively high and is a common barrier to implementation.
Implementing Rainwater Harvesting Systems
. Furthermore, while legal, social and environmental barriers also exist, recent experience has documented means to overcome these barriers and strengthen water management practices.
How To Collect Rainwater For Home Use
There are many ways to promote and improve the implementation of rainwater harvesting, and governments can play an important role in these. The use of public subsidies as an incentive can encourage the installation of RWH systems and increase the number of users, especially among the poorest households. Regulatory frameworks are essential to effectively design these incentives, for example in Brazil. In Germany, the promotion of RWH (through grants and subsidies) at the municipal level enabled almost a third of newly constructed buildings to be equipped with rainwater harvesting systems. Government of India
, for example, provides financial assistance for the installation of RWH systems. Surat Municipal Corporation has made RWH mandatory for new buildings with plot size > 4000 m² and provides up to 50% (up to Rs. 2000) subsidy to residents to encourage rainwater harvesting. In Gwalior and Jabalpur, 6% property tax rebate in the year of completion of RWH construction is provided to the building owner as an incentive (CSE, 2019).
In Taiwan, Texas, and Brazil, the promotion of rainwater use is common through housing regulations that require all newly constructed buildings and structures to have rooftop rainwater catchments. Although laws and other government policies are the main drivers of RHW implementation, in general, strong policies to systematically promote RHW installation are often lacking or scattered. For example, in Brazil, RWH is barely included in federal-level legislation, but more common at the local level. In the absence of a national policy to regulate RDV, some national laws and mainly municipal regulations have taken up this legislative gap, as local authorities can become more aware of specific problems in the region and thus introduce specific legislation for the municipality. A large number of different laws and regulations at different scales complicate the implementation process. In addition, the scattered legislation does not cover all aspects of SWR: the main purpose of regulations is usually to promote the installation of CSN systems, but the incentives to implement them are rare, and there is no legislation that addresses stormwater treatment to improve stormwater quality (da Costa Pacheco et al., 2017). In addition, coordination between governmental and non-governmental RWH stakeholders and citizens who lack policy awareness or knowledge are common challenges (Bui Thi Thuy et al., 2019; Matto & Jainer, 2019).
Strategic stormwater management can reduce disaster risk for communities facing water scarcity, drought or flood risk. Access to clean water during a pandemic is essential for hand washing, hygiene and preventing the spread of COVID-19. The scalability of RWH must ensure that water is provided and available when needed without pollution and as a resilience option in remote rural areas severely affected by climate change and rainfall variability. Any effort to implement these solutions to increase water availability should carefully consider the cost-effectiveness and co-benefits of small-scale irrigation and other productive water uses. Integrated research involving geospatial analysis and remote sensing can provide evidence to demonstrate a stronger case for expanding RWHs globally and improving their operational, financial and environmental sustainability.
The Many Benefits And Advantages Of Rainwater Harvesting
The payback period can take several years, and this cost-benefit trade-off makes it uneconomic for households to install RWH systems, given their low return on investment (Lee et al., 2016). The installation of RWH systems is not attractive to marginalized households or those who do not own the land they live on, such as tenants and squatters on ‘disputed land’ (Staddon et al., 2018).
Another reason for low RWH implementation is that water quality can be compromised if not properly managed. Roof catchments are usually contaminated with dust, dirt, leaves, bird droppings or dead animals, all of which can compromise stormwater quality. The material used for the tanks can also affect the microbial quality of the water. Rainwater storage tanks can form a layer of silt that attracts mosquitoes and insects. Bacteria and other contaminants can be removed by debris screens and filters, as well as by diverting the first flush, and storage can be filtered and disinfected, but these measures are not often used (Bui Thi Thuy et al., 2019; Campisano et al., 2017). An understanding of rainfall and other technical parameters is necessary for proper design of RWH systems, but is often lacking. If any of these parameters are not considered, RWH systems may be inefficient or insufficient to ensure reliable supply (Bui Thi Thuy et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2016).
In India, the Central Groundwater Board has directed group housing societies (low-cost mass housing schemes for groups of people who purchase land together), institutions, schools, hotels, industrial establishments and rural houses outside New Delhi, where the water table is more than 8 meters below the ground surface, to would implement RWH systems in their premises. The Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation has made RWH mandatory for all new buildings on plots of 100 m² or more in New Delhi. Building plans are not sanctioned unless such condition is provided. In addition, buildings with plots of 200 m² or more that obtain groundwater through tube wells or boreholes must implement RWH (CSE, 2019).
Thank you for choosing to be a part of The Water Blog community! Your subscription is now active. The latest blog posts and blog-related announcements will be delivered directly to your email inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time.Open Access Policy Institutional Open Access Program Special Questions Guidelines Editorial Research and Publication Ethics Article Processing Fees Awards Feedback
Commercial Buildings Using Rainwater Harvesting Systems To Help Meet Water Requirements
All articles published are immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No specific permission is required to reuse all or part of a published article, including figures and tables. For articles published under the Creative Commons CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission, as long as the original article is clearly credited. For more information, please see https:///openaccess.
The papers presented are state-of-the-art research with significant potential for major impact in the field. The paper should be a significant original paper that incorporates multiple methods or approaches, provides a perspective on future research directions, and describes potential research applications.
Articles are submitted at the individual invitation or recommendation of scientific editors and must receive positive reviews from reviewers.
Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations made by journal scientific editors from around the world. The editors select a small number of recently published articles in the journal that they believe will be of particular interest to readers or significant to the research area in question. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the journal’s various research areas.
Top 5 Vendors In The Rainwater Harvesting Market In India From 2017 To 2021: Technavio
By s.org Google Scholar 3 and María Fernanda Torregrosa FloresMaría Fernanda Torregrosa Flores SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 1, †
Program Universitario de Estrategias para la Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito de la Investigación Científica s/n Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, Mexico
Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito de la Investigación Científica s/n Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, Mexico
Current address: Dirección General de Atención a la Comunidad, Oficinas exteriores Zona Cultural Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán 04510, Mexico.
Rainwater Harvesting (urban)
Submission received: August 22, 2018 / Revised: September 28, 2018 / Accepted: October 10, 2018 / Published: October 26, 2018
Mexico City is one of the most water-stressed cities in the world; several parts of the city have poor quality water. The use of rainwater harvesting (RWH) as a source of drinking water is accepted in several contexts, but the quality of water produced by these systems has not been sufficiently studied. This manuscript presents the results of water quality tests from samples taken at each component of the RWH system installed at Isla Urbana at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), south of Mexico City. The RWH system culminates in a drinking fountain that supplies water to students and other members of the university community. Samples were obtained from August 2014 to November 2015, approximately once a month. The results showed that with adequate operation of the RWH system, major ions, fluoride, zinc, arsenic, lead, iron, copper, chromium, aluminum, nitrates and total coliforms meet national standards and international guidelines for drinking water. Thus, RWH is a viable solution for providing good quality water in a metropolitan area that will become increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity due to climate change.
As water scarcity has become an increasingly pressing issue worldwide, creating viable sustainable sources is now paramount