Journal of Integrative Agriculture

2013, 12(8): 1389-1395 August 2013

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Water and Energy Conservation of Rainwater Harvesting System in the Loess

Plateau of China

JIANG Zhi-yun1, 2, LI Xiao-yan1, 2 and MA Yu-jun1, 2

1 State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R.China
2 College of Resources Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R.China

Abstract
Water is the source of all the creatures on the earth and energy is the main factor driving the world. With the increasing
population and global change, water and energy conservation have become worldwide focal issues, particularly in the
water-stressed and energy-limited regions. Rainwater harvesting, based on the collection and storage of rainfall runoff,
has been widely used for domestic use and agricultural production in arid and semiarid regions. It has advantages of
simple operation, high adaption, low cost and less energy consumption. This study reviewed rainwater harvesting
systems adopted in the Loess Plateau of China and analyzed water use efficiency (WUE) for various rainwater harvesting
techniques. Supplemental irrigation using harvested rainwater could increase crop yield by more than 30%, and WUE
ranged from 0.7 to 5.7 kg m-3 for spring wheat, corn and flax, and 30-40 kg m-3 for vegetables. Moreover, energy consumption
for rainwater harvesting based on single family was compared with traditional water supply in the city of the Loess Plateau
using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Results showed that energy consumption yielded per unit harvested
rainwater was 25.96 MJ m-3 yr-1 which was much less than 62.25 MJ m-3 yr-1 for main water supply in Baoji City, Shanxi
Province, meaning that rainwater harvesting saved energy by 139.8% as compared to the main water supply system. This
study highlights the importance and potential of rainwater harvesting for water and energy conservation in the near
future.

Key words: rainwater harvesting, water saving, energy conservation, life cycle assessment (LCA)

mand for an increasing population in 2050, without con-

INTRODUCTION
Water and energy are two basic needs for human to
survive. Unfortunately, water supplies are encounter-
ing unprecedented challenge with the increasing demand
of industry, agriculture and booming urban populations
(UNESCO 2012). Hundreds of millions of people are
still undergoing water scarcity and waterborne diseases
(Gilbert 2012). Rockström (2003) reported that an ad-
ditional 5 800 km3 yr-1 is needed to meet the water de-
sidering water productivity gains. Energy crisis is also
serious, and about 1.6 billion people are lacking of en-
ergy for cooking, lighting and heating (Granit 2011).
Precipitation is the main available water source in the
terrestrial water balance (Oki and Kanae 2006), and it
can be partitioned into two groups: blue water and green
water (Falkenmark 1995). Blue water as the conven-
tional water resource consists of surface water and
groundwater, and green water is considered to be the
evapotranspiration flow. Okiand and Kanae (2006) esti-

Received 17 October, 2012 Accepted 10 January, 2013

Correspondence LI Xiao-yan, Tel: +86-10-58802716, E-mail: xyli@bnu.edu.cn

© 2013, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/S2095-3119(13)60553-5
1390
mated that blue water utilized by human beings was about
3 800 km3 yr-1, only less than 10% of the maximum avail-
able renewable freshwater, which was far lower than
the green water estimated to be 22 000 km 3 yr -1 .
Therefore, green water has a great potential to be used
for solving water stress. Rainwater harvesting, as an
old and efficient approach to collect rainfall, can de-
crease unproductive evaporation, which means highly
efficient use of green water. It has been widely used
for domestic use and supplemental irrigation in China,
Brazil, Australia, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand
and so on (Zaizen et al. 2000; Hills et al. 2001; UNEP
2002). Previous studies concerning rainwater harvest-
ing techniques mainly focused on water saving, but the
researches on energy conservation were still scarce.
In order to build environmentally sustainable economies,
it is necessary to integrate the water supply and demand,
energy and growing food into consideration. Grady
and Younos (2008) had ever analyzed rainwater har-
vesting of a single family in Virginia, US, and the re-
sults showed that its energy efficiency was higher than
that of the groundwater in theory, but in practice, it
depended on the efficiency of the pump. Actually, rain-
water harvesting systems, used concrete rain tanks,
could decrease the life-cycle energy consumption by
3% and reduce the cost by 34% compared with main
water supply in Auckland, New Zealand (Mithraratne
and Vale 2007). In addition, rainwater harvesting can
reduce the emission of carbon dioxide compared with
compact water systems such as main water supply
(Angrill et al. 2011; Ward et al. 2011). Furthermore, it
has a significant impact on the management of water-
shed ecosystems, by storing more water in reservoir,
increasing infiltration and groundwater recharge, re-
ducing soil erosion, improving food security and eco-
nomic security and so on (Li et al. 2002; Cortesi 2009).
In order to have a better understanding of the effects
of rainwater harvesting on environment, researches are
tending to have a quantified and precise evaluation.
Rowe (2011) found 0.37 m3 of storage volume per 1 m2
of catchment area was the optimum maximum capacity.
Ward et al. (2011) proposed an improved method to
benchmark energy consumption and CO2 emission for
rainwater harvesting systems. Results of improved
method suggested that the energy consumption for rain-
water harvesting system was only 0.07% of gross en-
JIANG Zhi-yun et al.
ergy consumption of an office building. However, it
has also been pointed out that rainwater harvesting
actually had negative impacts on environment, par-
ticularly in relation to energy consumption and CO2
emission (Parkes et al. 2010). Hence, rainwater
harvesting, not to be a simple water saving technique,
should be evaluated through taking energy
consumption, environmental impacts and other aspects
into account synthetically. Many previous studies have
confirmed the positive effects of rainwater harvesting
on energy conservation and environment, but differed
with their different conditions, different systems and
different methods (Li and Gong 2002a; Mithraratne
and Vale 2007; Grady and Younos 2008; Cortesi 2009;
Angrill et al. 2011; Ward et al. 2011). Energy conser-
vation for rainwater harvesting needs to be further
studied.
The history of rainwater harvesting techniques in
China may date back to 2 700 yr ago extensively ap-
plied in the Loess Plateau (Li and Gong 2002a; Li 2003),
but there were seldom systematic studies about rain-
water harvesting until the 1980s (Li 1998). Previous
studies about rainwater harvesting mainly focused on
its benefits for solving water stress, improving agri-
cultural production (Li 2003), adjusting agricultural
structure and promoting the ecological and environ-
mental conservation such as afforestation (Li et al.
2002; Cheng et al. 2005). However, few researches
about energy conservation for rainwater harvesting
were conducted in semiarid regions of China. This
paper firstly aimed to review the development and
application of rainwater harvesting and analyze its
water use efficiency in the Loess Plateau, and then
created a scenario analysis of energy consumption for
rainwater harvesting by using the life cycle assess-
ment (LCA) method and compared rainwater harvest-
ing with conventional water supply system of the city
in the Loess Plateau of China.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Rainwater harvesting systems and its water use
efficiency in the Loess Plateau
The brief history and application of rainwater har-
© 2013, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Water and Energy Conservation of Rainwater Harvesting System in the Loess Plateau of China
vesting systems Rainwater harvesting as a technique
of collecting rainfall runoff for domestic use and agri-
cultural production (Frasier 1983; Reij et al. 1989), has
been extended to water-stressed regions around the
world for thousands of yr (Frasier 1980). China also
has a long history of rainwater utilization for about
4 000 yr. An original rainwater utilization technique
named “intertillage” was used to increase infiltration for
crop production (Gao and Li 2005). Another very old
but still used flood diversion technique developed since
the Spring and Autumn period (about 2 700 yr ago) called
“warping”, has been widely applied in the Loess Plateau
of China. The underground clay-lined storage tanks ap-
peared in Gansu Province 600 yr ago, the Ming Dynasty
(Li 2000b). Up to now, many other rainwater harvest-
ing techniques such as terraced fields, fish-scale pits and
mini-dams have appeared to store runoff, improve crop
production and prevent soil erosion (Li 2003). However,
with the demand of increasing population and widespread
droughts since the 1980s, people have been aware of the
potential of rainwater harvesting to solve water shortage
problem (Li 2002b) and begun to integrate rainwater
harvesting with modern agricultural techniques (Xiao and
Wang 2003). Owing to simple operation, high adapta-
tion and low cost, modern rainwater harvesting systems
have been widely built for household use and rainwater
harvesting agriculture (RHA) under the government’s
support since the 1990s (Li 2000a, 2003). The systems
consist of catchment, storage tank and supplemental ir-
rigation means made by modern accessible materials.
Rainwater catchment includes concrete yard, roof, earthy
and asphaltic road surface. Water storage tank made
from concrete or red-clay, 20-30 m3 in volumes, is usu-
ally distributed alongside the yard or in the field approach-
ing the road. Rainwater harvesting technique combined
with efficient irrigation techniques such as drip irrigation,
sprinkler irrigation has been used for crop, orchard and
vegetable production (Gao and Li 2005). At present,
rainwater harvesting systems have been successfully em-
ployed to solve water stress problems not only in the
arid and semiarid Loess Plateau such as Gansu Province,
Shanxi Province, Ningxia Autonomous Region and In-
ner Mongolia Autonomous Region, but also in the semi-
humid and humid areas such as Guizhou Province and
Guangxi Autonomous Region (Li 2000a, 2003). For
example, the 121 rainwater harvesting program supported
1391
by Gansu provincial government was to build 100 m2
concrete catchment in area, 2 rainwater storage tanks
(40 m3) and irrigate 1/15 ha of farmland for production.
Until 2001, this program has achieved great benefit in
economy and society. It helped farmers build 2.18 mil-
lion rainwater storage tanks with the reservoir capacity
of 7.31×107 m3, which could meet daily life demand of
1.97 million of rural people and irrigate 2.36×105 ha crop-
land for production in Gansu Province (Gao and Li 2005).
Water use efficiency for rainwater harvesting sys-
tem Rainwater harvesting as a technique of collecting
rainwater used to solve household water problems at
rural regions, has been successfully shifted to be a
supplemental irrigation tool for crop production. Pro-
viding supplemental irrigation during water-stressed
period of the crops is important to get a high sustain-
able grain production. Based on the research of Li et al.
(2000), the relative water satisfaction of winter wheat
was 62% of the whole phenology, but only 35, 40,
41% for three important growth phases of jointing,
grain-filling and heading. Therefore, irrigating duly is
necessary. With the limited rainwater and increasing
demand for water, rainwater efficient utilization is a
major aspect of rainwater harvesting system to insure
the improvement of agricultural production, which can
be assessed by water use efficiency (WUE). Water
use efficiency means the amount of dry matter created
by per unit water. At present, combining rainwater
harvesting with crop supplemental irrigation, orchard
supplemental irrigation and industrialized agriculture (like
greenhouse) can generate different yard economical
modes. Fig. 1 shows that supplemental irrigation for
main grain crops of spring wheat, corn, millet, flax can
increase the yield and water use efficiency by 10.5-88.3%,
19.6-88.4%, 20.5%, 44.7-120.6% and 0.7-5.2, 1.5-5.7,
0.9-1.6, 0.9-2.9 kg m-3, respectively (Gao et al. 2005).
It means rainwater harvesting system with supplemen-
tal irrigation has direct effects on crop production and
economical benefits. Moreover, supplemental irriga-
tion system has been also used for high value crops
such as vegetables, fruits, flowers to increase farmer’s
income in the semiarid Loess Plateau of China. Fig. 2
shows water use efficiency for greenhouse vegetables
of cucumber, tomato, watermelon, sweet melon under
supplemental irrigation increased by 30.5, 42.8-47.6, 40,
33.3 kg m-3, respectively. Obviously, water use effi-
© 2013, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1392
ciency of vegetables is higher than grain crops. It’s
surveyed that the output value per unit water of veg-
etables was 65-240 CNY m-3, which was higher than
the output values of corn and wheat of 2.9-6.3 CNY m-3 (Li
2003). Naturally, in order to make use of the rainwater
for maximum benefits, agricultural structure has been
adjusted to change land use out of grain production
into cash crops to increase farmers’ net returns.
Energy conservation for rainwater harvesting
system in the Loess Plateau of China
Based on the life cycle process of rainwater harvesting
system, an inventory table was obtained by analyzing
the resource consumption of the life cycle of the catch-
Fig. 1 Range of yield increase percentage and water use efficiency
of main crops with supplemental irrigation. The yield increase
percentage of millet was 20.5 with no variation range denoted by
horizontal line in the figure.
Fig. 2 Water use efficiency of vegetables with supplemental
irrigation.
JIANG Zhi-yun et al.
ment and tank as the two main parts to rainwater har-
vesting system. Details of the inventory analysis are
shown as below.
Based on a survey of 30 sample families, Table shows
that energy consumption per unit water of a common
rainwater harvesting system in its life cycle process
for a rural family use is about 25.96 MJ m-3 yr-1 in the
semiarid Loess Plateau of China. Energy consumption
per unit water of catchment occupies 65.6% of the
total energy consumption every year and the tank is
only 34.4%, which is corresponding to that the con-
crete consumption of catchment is about 4 m3 com-
pared with the tank of 1.47 m3. Therefore, improving
runoff efficiency to decrease the catchment area will
have a more profound impact on reducing the energy
consumption.
Making comparison of energy consumption be-
tween rainwater harvesting system and main water
supply system in Baoji City, Shanxi Province of Loess
Plateau (Wang et al. 2006), aims at revealing whether
rainwater harvesting system has positive effects on
energy conservation or not. Wang et al. (2006) also
used the life cycle assessment method to analyze ur-
ban main water environment system in Baoji City, which
was divided into five parts of drinking water treat-
ment system, water distribution system, using system,
sewerage system and wastewater treatment system.
From the analysis results, there were such consump-
tions as steels of 149.02 kt, cement of 73.38 kt and
energy supplies of 113.78 Gwh every year in the life
cycle process. Gross supply of main water was about
1.17×108 m 3 yr-1. Eventually, the energy consump-
tion per unit water of main water supply in the Baoji
City was calculated out to compare with rainwater
harvesting system as Fig. 3. Fig. 3 reveals that, in the
life cycle process of rainwater harvesting system,
energy consumption per unit of catchment occupies
17.03 MJ m-3 yr-1, while the tank is only 8.94 MJ m-3
yr -1. However, it also shows that energy consump-
tion per unit water of main water supply system in
Baoji City is about 62.25 MJ m-3 yr-1, which exceeds
that of the rainwater harvesting system by 139.8%,
and the distribution system occupies 33.75%, which
is higher than those of the other four systems. It
implies that rainwater harvesting system has profound
effects on energy conservation, which was agreement
© 2013, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Water and Energy Conservation of Rainwater Harvesting System in the Loess Plateau of China
Table Inventory analysis of the rainwater harvesting system
Styles Lo (yr) CV (m3) MV (m3) ECC (MJ m-3)
Catchment 20 4 0 3150
Tank 30 1.47 1.16
Lo, longevity; CV, concrete volume; MV, mortar volume; ECC, energy coefficient of concrete; ECM, energy coefficient of mortar; EC, energy consumption; TEC, total
energy consumption; RW, rainwater; ECY, energy consumption per yr.
Fig. 3 Comparison of energy consumption between rainwater
harvesting system and main water supply system in Loess Plateau.
RWHS, rainwater harvesting system; CA, catchment; TA, tank;
TOT, total; MWSS, main water supply system; DT, drinking water
treatment; DI, distribution system; US, using stage; DR, drain system;
WT, wastewater treatment.
with other researches (Grady and Younos 2008; Rowe
2011; Ward et al. 2011).
CONCLUSION
Rainwater harvesting was proved to be very helpful
for water and energy conservation by assessing the
water use efficiency (WUE) and energy consumption
for agricultural production in the Loess Plateau.
Supplemental irrigation of rainwater for agricultural
use will significantly improve the crop yield and in-
crease farmers’ incomes. Furthermore, energy con-
servation has been also confirmed by making the com-
parison of energy consumption per unit water for do-
mestic use between the rainwater harvesting system
and main water supply of the city. The results im-
plied that catchment consumed more energy than the
tank in the rainwater harvesting system.
Consequently, further studies about energy conserva-
tion of rainwater harvesting systems should combine
with more systems such as supplemental irrigation
system and industrialized agriculture system.
1393
ECM (MJ m-3) EC (MJ yr-1) TEC (MJ yr-1) RW (m3) ECY (MJ m-3 yr-1)
4560 630 961 37 25.96
331
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Water use efficiency of the rainwater harvesting
The benefits of rainwater harvesting on economy and ecol-
ogy was analyzed by means of collecting the survey and
statistic data and evaluating the results of previous stud-
ies since the 1990s in the semiarid Loess Plateau of China.
The collected information included the development, ap-
plication mode, crops or vegetables yield, farmer’s income
brought by the rainwater harvesting. Furthermore, a se-
ries of basic experiments about rainwater harvesting con-
ducted by Li (2000a, b) layed the foundation for quantita-
tively analysising the water saving, production increase,
economic and ecological effects. WUE as an indicator to
build the relationship between crop production and water
consumption (Kramer and Kozlowski 1979) was used to
assess water conservation of rainwater harvesting. Calcu-
lation of WUE in this paper refered to the work of Li (2000b)
as follows:
(1)
Where WUE is the water use efficiency (kg m-3), Y repre-
sents the yield under the planting area, W1 means the water
consumption of crops, and n 1 and n2 are the planting area
and catchment area, respectively.
Calculation of energy consumption for rainwater
harvesting
Energy consumption was calculated via the LCA method.
Firstly, it is necessary to set up a scenario and analyze it
with LCA, and then making a comparison with energy con-
sumption of main water supply systems in the semiarid
city.
Scenario background
After detail field investigation, we set up a case study with
a typical rural family with 4 members in the semiarid Loess
Plateau of China. The rainwater harvesting system con-
sists of catchment and storage rank and the collected rain-
water transported by manual work is mainly utilized for do-
© 2013, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1394
mestic use. Rainwater catchment and storage rank are made
of modern materials such as cement and mortar according to
the technical code (SL267 2001). Based on the technical
code, it is easy to calculate the total water requirement of
36.5 m3 by obtaining the daily water requirement per capita
of 25 L for a single family home in semiarid Loess Plateau.
Considering the runoff efficiency of 0.75-0.79, the catch-
ment area is evaluated to 100 m2 to meet the water demand
and the volume of storage tank is 25 m3 (Gao and Li 2005).
LCA process of rainwater harvesting system
LCA is recognized as a technique for evaluating a product
with its environmental impacts, by accumulating an inven-
tory of all the inputs and outputs of the system, assessing
the potential impacts of those inputs and outputs and ana-
lyzing the results of the inventory and the effects on envi-
ronmental aspects (ISO 1997). Moreover, according to the
principles and framework of LCA (ISO 1997), a simple LCA
model of rainwater harvesting system can be built as
follows.
Goal and scope definition Goal and scope definition is the
starting point of an LCA study. Defining goal of this study
is to ascertain the energy consumption of the rainwater
harvesting system in the Loess Plateau. Based on the ISO
(1997) documents, the scope should be defined with some
main issues of the function, the functional unit and the
product system boundaries (Friedrich 2002). Water saving
is beyond doubt the function of rainwater harvesting, while
energy conservation is still uncertain. The functional unit
of the rainwater harvesting is defined as energy consump-
tion of 1 m3 of rainwater in this paper. Hence, under the
consideration of resources and energy consumption and
CO2 emission of the whole life cycle, the life cycle process
of the rainwater harvesting consisted of several parts (Fig. 4).
The dashed line was the boundary of a common rainwater
harvesting system in the Loess Plateau, which included
catchment and storage water tank. It involved three main
processes of collecting, storing and using water. Based
on the technical code (SL267 2001), the life cycles of the
catchment and storage tank were considered to be 20 and
30 yr, respectively. And disinfection was not considered
in this paper.
Inventory analysis Inventory analysis involving data col-
lection and calculation to quantify inputs and outputs is
the main part of an LCA system (Friedrich 2002). As we
know, processes of installation, maintaining and operation
need resources and energy, and emit greenhouse gases.
However, rainwater harvesting system in Loess Plateau
seldom requires resources and energy for the processes of
maintaining and operating because of no pumping distri-
bution system in most cases, so only embodied resource
consumption is taken into consideration. The embodied
resources in the rainwater harvesting system are the con-
crete and mortar. Resource consumption could be con-
JIANG Zhi-yun et al.
Fig. 4 Life cycle boundaries of rainwater harvesting system.
verted into energy consumption by the relative energy
coefficients (Alcorn and Wood 1998).
Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (41025001 and 41130640), the Funda-
mental Research Funds for Central Universities of China,
and Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Re-
search Team in University, China (IRT1108).
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