Rainwater Harvesting

Rain, the purest of all natural waters, may collect finely powdered mineral matter,
particles of plants, ammonia, carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen and other
substances gathered in its fall through the atmosphere. On reaching the earth, rain
flows into streams as surface runoff, passes into the air as vapor or sinks into the
ground, a storage reservoir from which it eventually emerges as vapor or surface
water or is recovered as ground water (P. N. Cheremisinoff, 1993).
The benefits of rainwater harvesting is it allows us to save water, improves ground
moisture, allows drought proofing, saves energy required to lift water, reduces
flowing of roads and reduces soil erosion (R. M. Harrison, 1983).This is an ideal
solution of water problem in areas having inadequate water resources especially
during a shortage water supply.
How to harvest rainwater? The most simple way to harvest rainwater is simply using
household products. Simple items can be used to collect rainwater, for example by
using watering cans, children's swimming pools and basin.

Groundwater Sources
Groundwater sources are most often wells. Wells may be classified as to the of
aquifer from which they derive the water. It draws water from an unconfined
aquifer, it is called a free surface well, gravity well or table well. The unconfined
aquifer is one which contain water with free surface at atmospheric pressure (P. N.
Cheremisinoff, 1993).
The benefits of groundwater sources are they do not get polluted (if water gets
filtered while percolating through sand and stones, temperature of deep water
remains stable and if the bore are deep enough, chances of water available in the
summer are more. An ideal solution to attain water sources during a shortage of
water supply.
How to attain water from ground water sources? One of the ways is through a dug
well. How to build a dug well? It is usually 4 to 6 feet in diameter, which is

excavated through topsoil until the water bearing stratum is encountered. Such
wells may be lined with concrete, brick, rough stone of vitrified tile. That portion of
the lining extending from about a feet above the ground surface to at least 10 feet
below the surface should be watertight to exclude any surface drainage.
Dams
Most dams are expected to provide at least some flood control and this is the sole
purpose of some dams. When heavy precipitation occurs upstream of the dam,
producing a high flow rate in the river, as we want the dam to reduced the flow rate
downstream of the dam and preventing floods (D.P. Cuduto, 1998).
The benefits of dams basically to slow down the rate of discharge of the river. It is
also to contained a large volume of water. As stated in the problem statement, by
having a dam build within the affected area, shortage of water sources will not be a
problem anymore. An ideal solution to overcome the shortage of water sources.
However, the pace of activity for building new dams is not as high as it once was.
The reasons for this slowdown include for geologic, hydrologic, topographic and
economic reasons, there are limited number of good sites for dams (D.P. Cuduto,
1998). Due to environmental concerns, new dam building projects are subjected to
intense scrutiny, where only those with clear benefits reach the construction stage.

Refferences
Donald P. Cuduto, Geotechnical Engineering Principles and Practices, Alan APT, 1998
Roy M. Harrison, Pollution Causes, Effects and Control, The University of
Birmingham, 1983
P. N. Cheremisinoff, Water Management and Supply, PTR Prentice Hall, 1993