Sustainable water resources through harvesting rainwater and the effectiveness of a low-cost water treatment

Increases in world population and climate change are some of the pressures affecting water resources for current and future water availability. The variability in water availability can reduce agricultural yields, food supplies and potentially leads to malnutrition and spread of diseases in water-po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of environmental management 2021-05, Vol.286, p.112223, Article 112223
Main Authors: Richards, Samia, Rao, Lakshminarayana, Connelly, Stephanie, Raj, Anjali, Raveendran, Lakshmi, Shirin, Shahana, Jamwal, Priyanka, Helliwell, Rachel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Harvested rainwater
India
Rain
Sodium hypochlorite
Water
Water management
Water Purification
Water Resources
Water Supply
Water treatment
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Summary:Increases in world population and climate change are some of the pressures affecting water resources for current and future water availability. The variability in water availability can reduce agricultural yields, food supplies and potentially leads to malnutrition and spread of diseases in water-poor countries. Even some water-rich countries can experience prolonged periods of dry weather, causing a drop in water reservoirs levels, forcing more restricted water resources management. Rainwater harvesting is one key option in adapting to water shortage and future demands that may alleviate the pressure on existing water resources. This work evaluates a roof top rainwater harvesting system (RWHS) installed as part of a decentralised wastewater treatment system designed to enable a circular economy by providing a more reliable water supply system in a remote public school in rural India. The effectiveness of the RWHS in reducing the pressure on a groundwater supply was assessed along with the physical, chemical and microbial characteristics of the stored rainwater over time. Further, the application of a low-cost primary treatment to make the harvested water safe to use for multiple purposes was investigated. The results revealed that the harvested water was of acceptable quality at the start of collection, however, microbial abundance increased when the rainwater was stored for a long time without treatment. Thus, a chlorine dosing regimen for the RWHS was designed based on laboratory and field experiments. The results also demonstrated that the low-cost chlorination process was effective in the field in reducing microbial abundance in the stored water for more than 30 days. However, as the residual chlorine level was reduced with time to
ISSN:0301-4797
1095-8630
DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112223