Selection of rainwater harvesting

rid and semi-arid areas such as Iraq suffer not only from limited precipitation but also from
poor management of rainwater for agricultural use. One technique for rainwater harvesting
(RWH) is to collect excess runoff water during the rainy season and store it for agricultural
purposes during dry spells. Remote sensing (RS) and geographic information systems (GIS)
are widely used to identify suitable RWH sites. In this study, an integrated approach was
adopted to determine suitable RWH sites in Kirkuk City, Iraq. The methods were integrated
with the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method to evaluate the parameters that
significantly contribute to RWH site selection. Thematic layers, such as runoff depth, slope,
drainage, and land use/land cover, as well as their features were assigned suitable weights
and then integrated in a GIS to generate a RWH potential map of the study area. Suitable
sites for different RWH structures, such as farm ponds and check dams, were also identified.
The study area can be classified into three potential RWH zones: high suitability zone (8.2%
or 399.75 km2), moderate suitability zone (63.4% or 3,090.75 km2), and low suitability zone
(28.4% or 1,384.5 km2). Around 3.7% of the study area (181.6 km2) is suitable for farm
ponds while 4% (197 km2) is suitable for check dams. The integrated RS, GIS, and MCDA
techniques were found to be a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to recover
rainwater and select suitable RWH sites.

"Aims and objective of rain water harvesting:

The process of saving the rainwater in a separate tank like arrangement without making it get
mixed with drainage and seawater is called rainwater harvesting.

The main aim and objectives of rain water harvesting are:

To save the water that falls down on earth in the form of rain.
To eradicate "water shortage" during the summer season.
If houses are constructed along with rainwater harvesting plan, it will avoid the huge loss
caused due to erosion which is caused by runoffs.
With the system of rainwater harvesting scheme, the adverse effect caused by the flood can
be reduced because improper storage of rainwater is the first and foremost cause of flood
during the "rainy season".
It reduces the draining of available groundwater and increases the level of groundwater."
METHODOLOGY

3.1 Data Collection

RS and ancillary data on the study area were
collected from different Iraqi governmental
agencies. A Landsat 8 image (spatial resolution of 30
m) of the study area was acquired on February 28,
2015. The digital elevation model (DEM, 30 m × 30 m)
used in this study was adopted from the DEM model
of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) of
the United States Geological Survey
(http://www.usgs.gov/). Climatological data
(average rainfall data) covering a 15-year period
(2000–2014) were collected from the Iraqi
Meteorological Organization and Seismology. An
exploratory soil map of Iraq at a 1:000,000 scale was
obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture of Iraq.

Importance Of Rainwater Harvesting

Fresh, clean water is a limited resource. While most of the planet is covered with water, it is
salt water that can only be consumed by humans and other species after undergoing
desalination, which is an expensive process. Occurrences such as droughts further limit
access to clean and fresh water, meaning people need to take steps to reduce water use and
save as much water as possible. In some areas of the world, access to water is limited due to
contamination. People who have access quantity of fresh water can take steps to limit their
use of water to avoid wastage of water.

How to Harvest Rainwater?

Rainwater could be easily collected in plastic tanks. They are easy to install and handle. They
are comparatively cheaper than underground tanks, but definitely take up space. For
harvesting rainwater you first calculate the possible rain, you can do this by getting
information from the Meteorological Bureau of your area. They would give you information
about the average rainfall over the whole month.

For instance, if you have 600mm rains every year and the area of your roof is 200 square
meters, and you are interested to catch the whole area for one-month storage. Your tank
volume must be 10,000 liters. This quantity of water will give 10,000/30 about 33 liters
water per day.

Be Careful about the following things:

  Your water should not seep on the public roadway, or on the property of your
neighbor.
 Water gets wasted by evaporation, so proper arrangement should be done.
 Regular maintenance is a must.
 Never let the gutters block, leaf-guard is best, but it is expensive.
 In-line-leaf is good, but they need proper and regular cleaning.
 Your tank must be mosquito free.
 If you want to drink rainwater, then, keep in mind that your roof should not be zinc-
alum, because aluminum is dangerous for you.
 It must be pollution free.

The harvested water can also be used as drinking water, longer-term storage, and for other
purposes such as groundwater recharge and irrigation purpose.

METHODOLOGY
2.1. Inflow to the RWH tank The rainwater tank is filled using rainfall volumes collected
from a building’s rooftop, courtyard and pedestrian areas. Under the assumption of constant
rainfall within each time step t, the rainwater volume can be calculated as follows: Qt ATOT
Rt A Rt I (1) where Qt is the inflow volume supplied to the tank at time step t (m3 ), I is the
runoff coefficient depending on water loss (dimensionless), Rt is the rainfall at time t (m),
ATOT is the total catchment surface area (m2 ), and A is the effective impervious surface
area (m2 ). Evaporation losses from the tank are neglected. In this study, I was set equal to
0.9 [17]. The stormwater quality of the initial discharge from the roof surface is of poor
quality due to the presence of dust, sediments, ect. [18] , that are accumulated during dry
periods and washed off at the beginning of the next rainfall event. The first flush is defined
as the initial period of a rainwater runoff where a pollutant concentration is remarkably
Vincenza Notaro et al. / Procedia Engineering 162 ( 2016 ) 373 – 380 375 higher than during
later periods [19]. According to Yaziz et al. [20], subtracting the first 0.33 mm of rainfall
from the total daily rainfall as the first flush would considerably improve roof water quality.
In this study, all the daily water balance simulations have been performed subtracting the
first flush of 0.33 mm from the daily rainfall series. 2.2. Water demand for toilet flushing In
order to accurately modeling the daily water demand for toilet flushing, the average number
of daily flushes per capita has to be estimated. In this study, the toilet flushing demand
pattern was defined by analyzing water consumption data collected during a monitoring
campaign of seven dwellings located in Palermo throughout the 2002– 2004 period. Each
monitored dwelling had a toilet WC flush tank with a volume of 9-10 L. Data have been
processed as described by Liuzzo et al. [15]. The number of daily flushes per capita were
then statistically analyzed to identify a well-fitting probability distribution function. The
application of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the Weibull distribution function fit
the observed data best. In order to generalize these results to other users, 365 random points
were sampled from the Weibull cumulative distribution function CDF fitting the cumulated
frequency of the obtained per capita flushes. In this manner, a daily pattern for an entire year
of toilet flushes per capita has been obtained. Finally, the series of daily household toilet
flushes was computed by multiplying the number of flushes derived in the previous step by a
selected number of users at home during the day.

Observing
As large sites are taken up for development designing sustainable water systems becomes
both an art and a science. While at the individual household level water management is
relatively simple, involving such elements as installing water conserving devices , designing
for water harvesting, arranging for water efficient gardens, ensuring recharge of ground
water, reusing grey water and possibly recycling sewage water things are a bit more complex
at layout levels or at development levels averaging over an acre.
Scale: The scale of the solution can be at individual household level, at the community level
and at the city scale. The term community encompasses streets or wards, neighbor hoods or
even gated communities of flats and apartments. Generally the principle of subsidiary
prevails, try to find the solution at the lowest possible level of ownership. Escalate the
solution only if it is inevitable.
Community level actions for water have been numerous and are worth emulating. In a small
town close to Bangalore a community of volunteers got together to clean an old ,large open
well. This well had become a dumping ground for garbage and water seeping through this
garbage was further contaminating the ground water. Citizens came together slowly and
gradually, working on Sundays and cleaned up the well. The process has moved on to other
such open wells and these citizens are now engaging with the authorities to ensure the revival
of as many such water bodies as possible. It was the observation power of one concerned
citizen that lead to a town wide movement to engage with open wells.
In Chennai citizen groups have come together to revive many temple tanks aided by
organizations such as the Rotary and several Civil society groups. In Jaipur a multi-national
corporation has come forward to help restore an old ‘Bawdi’ – a step well dating centuries.
All these examples are of individuals or groups thinking beyond self for taking action.

Analysis
Life cycle assessment methodology along with water footprint analysis was used to assess
the environmental impacts of a domestic rainwater harvesting system (RWH) in France.
Firstly, the relevance of substituting drinking water (DW) with rainwater in a private
individual household was studied. Secondly, the effect of several parameters namely
construction of infrastructures, building scale and disinfection were evaluated. The
quantification of environmental impacts was performed using Ecoinvent inventory data and
Impact 2002+ evaluation method. The water footprint was assessed through the water stress
indicator (WSI). From an environmental standpoint, the RWH system has only slightly
higher impact than the DW system. The consumption of electricity for pumping generates the
strongest impact. The analysis of the WSI showed that the RWH system can relieve a stress
on water resources where it exists. Consideration of infrastructures and disinfection turns
environmental impacts significantly higher in all impact categories. Setting up the RWH
system at bigger scale, i.e., building scale, is a bit less favoured than the RWH system at
household scale. This study aims at pointing out areas of improvement which need to be
further studied to make RWH systems more sustainable.

Conclusions
Recently, the interest in RWH systems as an alternative water source has increased, due to
their economic and environmental advantages. Indeed, these systems can provide a
supplementary water supply in urban areas when integrated with an existing conventional
water supply system, or the main water supply in rural areas affected by water scarcity. In the
context of climate change, the installation of RWH tanks could represent a valuable
adaptation measure against the reduction of water availability. In this analysis, a behavioral
model has been applied to assess the performance of an RWH system in terms of water
saving efficiency. Water balance simulations showed that, in terms of annual water saving
efficiency, the RWH system is able to provide good performances when a catchment surface
of 200 - 300 m2 is available. In this case, water saving efficiency up to the 85% can be
reached in most of the island. Lower values of the catchment surface make the installation of
the RWH system not advantageous, due to the need for higher tank sizes. The cost-benefit
analysis highlighted the importance of selecting the optimal tank size in order to reach high
value of water saving efficiency and maximize the return of the initial investment. Starting
from the application of the YAS algorithm to different sites in Sicily, the correlation between
mean annual precipitation and water saving efficiency has been investigated in order to
define some equations, valid at regional scale, useful to quickly evaluate the performance of
a RWH system. In summary, the analysis highlighted that the RWH systems can play a
considerable role as an additional water supply system. For this reason, the installation of a
RWH system in residential urban areas should be encouraged by incentives and government
supports.