Rainwater harvesting

Rainwater Harvesting

Water harvesting is the activity of collection of rainwater directly by various means.

• Harvested water can either be used immediately or can be stored for later use.
• In Kerala and Mizoram, it rains almost the whole year-round. Therefore, here small tanks are used to collect rainwater, which drains from rooftops through pipes into these tanks. This water is used directly.
• In a place like Delhi where the monsoon lasts only for 3 months, it is more useful to collect rainwater as groundwater.

Rainwater does not always fall on soil or water sources; in fact, much of it falls on rooftops of houses and concrete roads and thus does not become a part of groundwater. Hence, a very important method has been devised to harvest rainwater so that it can be stored for future use:

Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting – In this method, rainwater that falls on rooftops is allowed to pass in a storage tank through pipes. This water might be dirty and hence not fit for direct use; hence it can be allowed to seep directly into the ground with the help of pipes.