Today, many rural areas depend on harvesting rainwater, but urban areas that are more or less exclusively served by utility companies, tend to forget this resource. Rainwater harvesting is an important solution, especially in the big cities where they are spending more water than is actually available. A problem that this is also exacerbating is the transformations to the environment and how climate change is occurring.
Capturing Rainwater
In order to capture rainwater, it is necessary that the surface or ‘runoff’ that is exposed to storm water permit allow its collection. This can happen either because the surface is impermeable or because its absorptive capacity is less than the infiltration on slopes.
In urban centres, areas exposed to rain are mostly impervious (roofs, roads and parking), so uptake can be performed with relatively small investments. Driving the water into runoff storage is usually performed by gutters on roofs (linked to siphon drains), pipe sheet and / or PVC gutters with or without grids in the floors.
Key benefits of rainwater harvesting:
Economic
Rainwater is a free and easy resource to maintain. It is also relatively clean and can be used in a whole host of different ways and activities that do not (health, to wash surfaces, vehicles or clothing, watering gardens or crops, among other possibilities).
Harvesting it can lead to a saving on bills of piped drinking water by the reduction in use.
Environmental
Collecting rainwater helps the conservation of reserves of drinking water, such as our rivers, lakes, and other wetlands.
It also fosters a culture of conservation and highlights an optimal use of water.
Social
It decreases the volume of rain water entering the drainage system combined (both sanitary and storm water), thereby avoiding flooding and reducing the volume of sewage discharges. This then increases their availability for other uses.
Harvesting this way reduces the use of energy and chemicals needed to treat rainwater in the city, also decreasing the amount of expenditures generated and helping with the treatment of other areas of focus. Overall, rainwater collection is very cheap and simple to get up and running, even for domestic home owners, so start harvesting today!
