Water is very important for everyone. Be it humans, plants, or animals, all need water to live and do cellular activities. It is hard to imagine life without water. In our daily activities, we all use water at some point in time. Be it drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, and washing, we use water. Nowadays, we all are going towards the shortage of water. It is all because of waste of water, lack of water saving, and polluted water bodies. So, everyone should save water and not to waste a single drop unnecessarily
There are several ways to save water and protect ourselves from water scarcity. Let us discuss rainwater harvesting, its procedure, benefits, and drawbacks in detail
What is Rainwater Harvesting?
The rainwater runs off from various places such as rooftops, roads, and open grounds. The best way to save water for future use is to store the rainwater. Earlier people store the rainwater to use for their daily activities. Nowadays, with technological development, several techniques are used to save rainwater. Rainwater harvesting is one of those techniques. As the name clears, Rainwater harvesting is a very easy technique that is used to save rainwater. The process of rainwater harvesting includes various steps including the collection of rainy water, its storage, transfer, and cleansing to make it ready for further use.
The quantity of the water to be harvested depends on several factors. These include:
- The quantity of runoff water.
- Parts of the catchments
- Environmental impacts
- The technology used for harvesting
- The capacity of the storage tanks
- Types of natural or man-made catchment areas.
- The frequency and quality of the rainfall
- The speed at which the rainwater slips through the subsoil to recharge the groundwater.
How to Harvest the Rainwater?
Rainwater harvesting techniques consist of different components including:
- Catchment- This is used to collect and store the captured rainwater that runs off natural or man-made catchment areas using artificially designed systems.
- Transportation system – After the catchment, the harvested water is transported to the recharge zone using the transportation system.
- Flush- The flush component is used to release the first spell of rain.
- Filter – It is used to filter the collected rainwater and remove pollutants from it.
- Tanks and recharge structures: At the end, storage tanks and recharge structures are used to store the filtered water for further.
Why Do We Harvest Rainwater?
Rainwater harvesting is considered one of the most effective as well as practical techniques to save water for future use. Getting good quality water nowadays is one of the most sensitive concerns because of the shortage of water and pollution. Rainwater is the only good quality and pure water that can be used to fulfill the requirement of day to day activities. For eg: People who live in hills, use rainwater not only for washing or bathing but also can be used for cooking.
What are the Benefits of Rainwater Harvesting?
The advantages of rainwater harvesting include:
- It helps in reducing the water bill.
- It is very simple and easy to install and use.
- This rainwater harvesting improves the quantity as well as quality of groundwater.
- Decreases the water demand and ultimately it reduces the need for imported water.
- It promotes not only water but energy conservation.
- It does not require any filtration system for landscape irrigation as it is a good source of chemical, dissolved salts, and mineral-free water
- It helps reduce soil erosion, stormwater runoff, flooding, and pollution of surface water with fertilizers, pesticides, metals, and other sediments.
What are the Drawbacks of Rainwater Harvesting?
Every coin has two faces. So, in addition to the benefits of the rainwater harvesting system, it has some drawbacks too.
Here are some disadvantages of rainwater harvesting including:
- Unpredictable rainfall, limited or no rainfall can affect the supply of rainwater
- Unavailability of an effective storage system
- Regular maintenance is necessary.
- A technically skilled person is required for installation. If the system is not installed properly, it may cause problems and attract various infectious diseases like waterborne diseases.
Conclusion
Water plays an important role in our life. To prevent the world from a water crisis, it is important to store the water that comes to us naturally through rain. Rainy water is considered the purest water without any kind of harmful chemicals that can affect us. Rainwater harvesting is one of the most cost-effective and highly practical techniques to store and process the water in an effective way to make it ready to use.
