Rainwater Harvesting

• Tanish Gadodia
• Tanishq Arora
 What is rain water harvesting?

Rainwater harvesting in simple words is a process or

activity of collection and storage of rain water.

 Rainwater harvesting is the accumulation and

deposition of rainwater for reuse on-site, rather than
allowing it to run off.
 Uses of rain water
 Recharge under ground water
 Gardening
 Livestock
 Drinking purpose
for irrigation purpose
 Advantages
 Rainwater harvesting technologies are simple to install
and operate.
 Local people can be easily trained to implement such
technologies, and construction materials are also
readily available.
 Running costs, also, are almost negligible.
 Water collected from roof catchments usually is of
acceptable quality for domestic purposes.
 Disadvantages
 Supplies can be contaminated by bird/animal
droppings on catchment surfaces and guttering
structures unless they are cleaned/flushed before use.

 Poorly constructed water jars/containers can suffer

from algal growth and invasion by insects, lizards and
rodents. They can act as a breeding ground for disease
vectors if they are not properly maintained.
 Why do people harvest rainwater?
 Rainwater is a precious resource due to increases in
demand from our ever growing population.
 Rainwater harvesting can provide around 50 per cent of a
family’s water needs.
 This not only saves water, but saves money and
reduces our impact on the environment.
 To inculcate a culture of water conservation
 To reduce soil erosion
How we can harvest rainwater?
 Broadly there are two ways harvesting rainwater.
(i) Surface runoff harvesting .
(ii) Roof top rainwater harvesting.

 Surface runoff harvesting:-

In urban area rainwater f lows away as surface
runoff. This runoff could be caught and used for
recharging aquifers by adopting appropriate
methods.
Commonly used rain water harvesting
techniques to augment ground water
Gully Plugs
Gully plugs are built using local stones,
clay and bushes across small gullies and
streams running down the hill slopes
carrying drainage to tiny catchments
during rainy season.
Gabion Structure
This is a kind of check dam commonly constructed across
small streams to conserve stream flows with practically
no submergence beyond stream course.
Precolation Tank

Percolation tank is an artificially created

surface water body, submerging in its
reservoir a highly permeable land, so that
surface runoff is made to percolate and
recharge the ground water storage.
Tubewell
A tube well is a type of water well in which a long,
100–200 millimetres-wide, stainless steel tube or
pipe is bored into an underground aquifer. The lower
end is fitted with a strainer, and a pump lifts water for
irrigation. The required depth of the well depends on
the depth of the water table.
 Roof top rainwater harvesting

 It is a system of catching rainwaterwhere it falls.

In rooftop harvesting, the roof becomes the
catchments, and the rainwater is collected from
the roof of the house/building. This method is
less expensive and very effective.
Components of the roof top rainwater harvesting
system.

1- Catchment area
2- Guttering Structure
3- Down Pipes
4- First Flush Pipe
5- Filtration System
6- Storage System
 Catchment area
 The surface that receives rainfall directly is the
catchment of rainwater harvesting system. It may
be terrace, courtyard, or paved or unpaved open
ground.
 Guttering Structure
The rainwater is collected in guttering placed
around the eaves of buildings.
Low cost guttering can be made up from galvanized
mild steel sheeting, bent to form ‘V’ and suspended
by galvanized wire stitched through the thatch or
sheeting.
 Down Pipes
Down pipe is joined with the gutter at one
end and the other end is connected to
filter unit of storage tank.
PVC or GI pipe are commonly used for
down pipe. Bamboo can also be used
wherever available and possible.
First Flush Pipe
A first flush arrangement is made to avoid
the entering unwanted materials such as
debris, dirt, dust, bird dropping, leaves
collected on roof into storage tank.
This is a simple manually operated system
with a valve below T junction.
 Filtration system
It is a container or chamber filled with filter
media such as coarse sand, charcoal, coconut
fiber, pebbles & gravels to remove debris & dirt
from water that enters tank.
The filter unit is placed over the storage tank.
 Storage system
All collected rain water are store in tank or barrels.
It is used to store water that is collected from the
roof through filter.
For small scale water storage plastic buckets, jerry
cans, clay or cement jars, ceramic jars or drums
may be used.
 Examples
 In the state of Tamil Nadu, rainwater harvesting was
made compulsory for every building to avoid ground
water depletion.
 In Rajasthan, rainwater harvesting has traditionally
been practiced by the people of the Thar Desert.
 At present, in Pune (in Maharashtra), rainwater
harvesting is compulsory for any new society to be
registered.
Thank You