Stormwater Harvesting from Roof Catchments: A Review of Design, Efficiency, and Sustainability

• Published in: Water (Basel) 2023-05, Vol.15 (9), p.1774
• Main Authors: Bañas, Karen, Robles, Miguel Enrico, Maniquiz-Redillas, Marla
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Catchments; Climate change; Efficiency; End users; Harvesting; Keywords; Population growth; Precipitation; Rain; Rain water; Rain-water (Water-supply); Rainwater recovery systems; Return on investment; Roofs; Runoff; Social factors; Stormwater; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Trends; Water harvesting; Water quality; Water supply; Water treatment
• ISSN: 2073-4441; 2073-4441
• DOI: 10.3390/w15091774

Roof runoff is collected rainwater from a roof using a rainwater harvesting system (RWHS). The construction of an efficient RWHS requires a thorough analysis of the rainwater quality and the appropriate treatment process for its intended use. In line with this, a bibliometric and comprehensive review of studies related to roof rainwater harvesting was conducted. A corpus of 1123 articles was downloaded from the Scopus database and parsed through the CorText Manager to determine the relationships between keywords, journals, and topics related to rainwater harvesting. A comprehensive analysis was also conducted to determine the different designs of RWHS, the quality of harvested rainwater from roof catchments, the efficiency of the system for specific purposes, and its sustainability in terms of economic, environmental, and social aspects. Results show that the effectiveness of a RWHS heavily depends on its installation site, the physicochemical characteristics of the harvested rainwater, and the acceptability of the end users. An effective water treatment process is essential for achieving better water quality for harvested rainwater. Moreover, assessing the financial viability and return on investment of an RWHS is necessary.