Water Harvesting

Rainwater harvesting is the collection and storage of rain water in the natural resources or artificially designed resources to prevent water runoff and fulfill the lack of water in future. The quantity of water harvesting is affected by the number of factors like frequency of rainfall, quantity of rainfall, way of collecting rain water, and size of resources to collect water. The ground water level is getting depleted day by day due to various reasons like deforestation and ecological imbalance.

Increasing level of urbanization and industrialization constantly increases the demand of water supply especially in the urban areas. It results in the overuse of ground water and thus going low level. The risk of water scarcity in the future has been increased to a great extent and can be life threatening if some effective solutions are not followed.

Water harvesting is very helpful and fulfill various need like recharging the ground water level, reduces electricity bill spend in supplying water and provide easy water supply anytime when required. It is estimated that 1 meter rise in the water level saves around 0.4 KWH of electricity.

Rain water harvesting is very necessary to be practiced by the people in all regions. It is good to reduce the fear of water scarcity in the future. Following are the points proving the fact that why rain water harvesting is necessary:

• Surface water cannot fulfill the demand of water for various purposes.
• Everyone depend on the ground water for their every need.
• Deforestation, rapid urbanization, rain water infiltration to the sub-soil, etc reasons are continuously decreasing the level of ground water.
• Rain water conservation maintains the level of water in natural water resources.
• It reduces the chance of flooding of water on the roads, reduces the risk of soil erosion and improves the quality of water.

Following are main techniques of rain water harvesting:

• Collecting rainwater to the surface for future use.
• Recharging the ground water.

Collecting rain water to the surface is very effective and traditional technique. It can be done using small ponds, underground tanks, dams, weirs etc. However, ground water recharging technique is a new concept of harvesting. It can be done using dug wells, pits, trenches, hand pumps, recharge wells, recharge shafts, recharge lateral shafts with bore wells, spreading technique (means spread of water to the stream, nala, etc).