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Q IWA Publishing 2010 Water Science & Technology: Water SupplyWSTWS | 10.2 | 2010

Assessment of rainwater harvesting for drinking water supply in Bangladesh

M. R. Karim

ABSTRACT
Rainwater harvesting is a potential option of water supply to the coastal and arsenic affected rural communities in Bangladesh and during the last few years, several projects were undertaken to promote and install various types of rainwater harvesting systems by government organizations and NGOs mainly for drinking and cooking water supply. A study was undertaken to assess the currently practiced rainwater harvesting systems located in the south west coastal and arsenic affected areas in the country. A total of 1,000 rainwater-harvesting systems were investigated using structured questionnaires; among them 14.8% were community based and 85.2% were household rainwater harvesting systems. The results of this assessment are presented in this paper. Availability of the harvested rainwater, operation, storage and maintenance of community based rainwater harvesting and ensuring water quality to meet the drinking water standard are the important issues that must be addressed properly. A protocol for the operation and maintenance according to WHO guideline can be adopted for the safe and sustainable rainwater harvesting in the country.
Key words
M. R. Karim Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yamaguchi University, 2-16-1 Tokiwadai, Ube 755-8611, Japan E-mail: rezaulmd@gmail.com

| drinking water supply, issues of rainwater harvesting, questionnaire survey,

rainwater harvesting, roof catchment, storage tanks

INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh as a tropical country, receives high seasonal rainfall all over the country. The seasonal high rainfall and suitable roof catchments in the rural areas make rainwater harvesting (RWH) a potential alternative water supply option in the country (BBS 1995; Ahmed 2002). The average annual rainfall is about 2,400 mm and in most part of the country, people normally can have the access to rainwater for 6 8 months on an average. In the coastal areas, suitable aquifers at shallow depths are rarely available, surface water especially the river water is highly saline and turbid and the scarcity of potable water is very acute in these zones (Ahmed 1999; Kamruzzaman & Ahmed 2006). Rain-feed ponds water and direct collection of rainwater are the major sources of drinking water in most parts of the coastal zones. About 28% of the countrys total population live in these areas and supply of safe water is one of the important
doi: 10.2166/ws.2010.896

environmental issues for human health and sustainable development in the coastal areas. Rainfall in the coastal areas are much higher than the average rainfall and rainwater harvesting has a good potential to supply drinking and cooking water in the coastal areas. Moreover, Bangladesh is currently facing a long-term health epidemic of cancers and other fatal diseases, as arsenic contamination of shallow aquifer water in excess of acceptable limit has been detected in most areas of the country (Ahmad et al. 2006). The arsenic contamination has reduced the national population coverage with safe water supply from 97% to 74% (Ahmed 2002) and exposed to about 30 million people to arsenic exceeding Bangladesh Standard of 50 mg/L (GOB 2002). The provision of arsenic free safe water is the only proven means of reducing the threats to exposed population (Ahmed et al. 2005)

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and rainwater harvesting, pond sand lters, dug wells and deep tubewells have been identied as the key alternative water supply options in the national policy for arsenic mitigation. Rooftop rainwater harvesting is receiving increased attention worldwide as an alternative source of drinking water in water scarce regions (Meera & Ahammed 2006). This is acknowledged as a sustainable source of water that has less impact on the environment and nowadays, rainwater is used as a source for numerous domestic applications like drinking, bathing, laundry, toilet ushing, hot water supply and for gardening purposes (Pathak & Heijnen 2006). Roof-collected tank rainwater is the major source of untreated drinking and domestic water supply in Australia, New Zealand and other countries (Simmons et al. 2001; Heyworth et al. 2006). In the recent years, rooftop rainwater harvesting has received an increased attention as a potential alternative water supply source both in the coastal and arsenic affected rural areas in Bangladesh. During the last few years, several projects have been undertaken to promote and install both household and community based rainwater harvesting systems in order to mitigate drinking water problem both in the coastal and arsenic affected areas in the country (APSU 2005; Ahmed et al. 2005; Karim 2005). This study was undertaken to assess the rooftop rainwater harvesting systems mainly used for drinking water supply, located in the south west coastal and arsenic affected areas in Bangladesh during 2004 5. The results of the assessment are presented in this paper.

developed and the following methodology was followed to conduct the study: Development of structured questionnaires Details eld investigation according to questionnaires Data processing and analysis The assessment was designed to know details of the following: General information of the rainwater harvesting systems Catchment area, storage tanks and rainwater collection, water abstraction and operating conditions of the RWH systems Issues regarding the rainwater harvesting.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

General information A total of 1,000 rooftop rainwater harvesting systems were investigated, of which 14.8% were community based and 85.2% were household based systems. (Table 1). Community based RWH systems are mainly school-based systems, in which bigger sub-surface reservoirs of capacity more than 50,000 litres made of RCC or ferrocement are used for storing rainwater. The number of users is more than 200 per community RWH system. The storage reservoirs of the household based RWH systems are made of ferrocement, plastic or RCC and are constructed over the surface and the capacity ranges from 500 litres to 3,200 litres. The information of the year of construction of the rainwater harvesting systems is shown in Figure 1. It reveals that promotion and installation of rainwater harvesting has started recently in Bangladesh, as most of the rainwater systems (93.6%) were constructed from 2000 to 2004 as part of arsenic mitigation programme and very few were

MATERIAL AND METHOD

In order to evaluate the rainwater harvesting practices for drinking water, a structural questionnaire survey was
Table 1

Details of the rooftop rainwater harvesting systems investigated for this study

RWH systems

Sampling areas Jhikargachha, Mongla, Bagerhat Jessore Monirampur, Jessore Shyamnagar, Satkhira Kalia, Narail Dacope, Khulna Damurhuda, Chuadanga Morrelganj, Bagerhat

Community Household Total

47 185 232

2 68 70

16 76 92

17 23 40

6 105 111

47 289 336

9 77 86

4 29 33

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Year of construction Information not available 3.0% 2005 0.6%

cases, harvested rainwater is available for about 6 to 9 months, depending on reservoir capacity mainly during and after the rainy season. However, during the dry period, the users depend on other sources like pond sand lters,
1995-1999 2.3%

1990-1994 0.5%

tubewells or unsafe pond water, sometimes far away from the household premises. The women, who are responsible for household water collection would need a long walk and time for water collection during the dry period, when tank water is not available. The relationship between the cost and the capacity of the storage reservoirs is shown in Figure 3. The regression coefcient R 2 of this relationship is 0.7536, indicating that the relationship between the capacity and cost of the storage reservoirs of the rainwater harvesting systems is not good; however this regression equation can be used for approximate cost estimation of storage reservoirs, which constitutes the major cost of a RWH system. Two types of storage reservoirs of 2,000 L and 3,200 L capacities are found to used commonly for household rainwater harvesting. The cost of a 2,000 L and 3,200 L capacity ferrocement tank ranges from Taka 5,000 to 6,000 and from Taka 7,000 to 8,000, respectively and are suitable for a family of 5 to 7 members and 9 to 10 members, respectively. From the eld investigation for this study, it was found that about 91.9% of the rainwater harvesting systems are in operation and are used for water collecting for drinking and cooking.

2000-2004 93.6%
Figure 1

Information of the construction period of the investigated rainwater harvesting systems.

constructed before 2000 mainly in the coastal regions of the country. The number of users and daily water abstraction from both community and household RWH systems are shown in Table 2. The number of users is present in-group. The availability of water is an important factor for sustainability of this system and Figure 2 shows the availability of harvested water into the reservoirs. It reveals that water is available throughout the year only in 19.8% reservoirs, mainly in community based and very few household based rainwater harvesting systems. In most

Table 2

Number of users and daily water abstraction from RWH systems

Number of users

Frequency

Daily water abstraction (L)

Frequency

Community based 25 200 201 500 501 1,000 1,001 1,500 Total Household based 03 05 06 08 09 12 13 16 Total 477 286 72 17 852 55.99 33.57 8.45 2.00 100.0 05 15 16 35 36 45 Total 443 395 14 852 52.00 46.36 1.64 100.0 85 40 18 5 148 57.43 27.03 12.16 3.38 100.0 25 100 100 200 201 400 401 600 Total 34 76 34 4 148 22.97 51.35 22.97 2.70 100.0

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Availability of water in the RWH system Information not available 11.1% Whole Year 19.8%

Portion of roof for rainwater catchment Others 18.4% 6 Month 31.9% Catchment not available 2.7% Whole roof 25.3%

4 Month 2.8%

9 Month 29.7%
Figure 2

8 Month 4.7%

Quarter roof 22.6%

Figure 4

Half roof 31.0%

Portion of the roof used as catchment for rainwater collection.

Availability of harvested rainwater into the storage reservoirs.

the investigated systems are shown in Figure 5. It reveals that tanks made of four major materials like ferrocement (35.8%), plastic (29.0%), RCC (14.1%) and brick (10.9%) are normally used. The capacity of the majority of household storage reservoirs (51.3%) varies from 2,000 to 3,500 litres, whereas larger reservoirs of capacity more than 10,000 litres are used for community based rainwater harvesting. It also reveals from this study that majority of the rainwater harvesting systems have been promoted and constructed by NGOs (58.4%), Department of Public Health Engineering (28.5%) Local Government Engineering Department (7.4%) or personally (5.7%). It was found that most of the gutters and down pipes are made of plastic (29.5%) and tin (38.0%) and only 2.0% by bamboo and about 23.8% RWH systems have no gutter and down pipe. Under such case, there is no denite rainwater collection and conveyance system to storage reservoir and people informed that they mainly do it manually by other means. Leakage in the gutter pipes was found in 88.32% systems (n 673). Bypass is essential to divert the rst foul
Table 3

Catchment, rainwater collection, storage and abstraction For community based RWH systems, the roof catchments are mainly RCC (41.2%) and CI sheet (58.8%), whereas majority of the roof catchments for household RWH systems are CI sheet (about 73.9%) and few are RCC (about 8.0%). The portion of the roofs catchment used for water collection are shown in Figure 4. The approximate size of the roof catchment used for rainwater collection is presented in Table 3. A roof catchment area of about 160 sq. ft is sufciently enough to collect the required water needed for a family of 6 7 members for domestic water requirements during the dry period. A variety of storage tanks made of RCC, ferrocement, brick, CI sheet or tin, Motka (earthen pot) and plastic tank are commonly used for storing harvested rainwater in Bangladesh as well as other countries (Pinfold et al. 1993). The tank materials have a signicant inuence on the physio-chemical quality of the harvested rainwater (Heijnen & Pathak 2006). The information of the tank materials of
3,00,000 2,50,000 Cost (Tk.) 2,00,000 1,50,000 1,00,000 50,000 0 0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 Capacity (L) Cost (Tk) = 3.8374 capacity (L) + 136.85 R 2 = 0.7536

Approximate size of the roof catchment area for rainwater collection

Approximate roof size (sq. ft)

Frequency

Percentage

100 200 201 600 601 1,100 1,101 1,600 1,601 2,100 2,101 2,600 2,601 3,100 3,101 3,600 Information not available Total

662 204 60 13 5 4 3 5 44 1,000

66.2 20.4 6.0 1.3 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.5 4.4 100.0

Figure 3

Relationship between the capacity and cost of the rainwater storage reservoirs.

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Storage tank Motka 2.0% Others (Tin, etc) 8.2% R.C.C 14.1%

The availability of harvested rainwater throughout the year is an important factor. It seems from this study that harvested rainwater can meet the partial water demand of drinking and cooking. The users were found to use unsafe surface water or arsenic contaminated tubewell water during the period of non-availability of harvested rainwater. This may cause potential health risk of spreading water borne diseases or arsenic related diseases. Thus,
Ferrocement 35.8%

Brick 10.9%

Plastic 29.0%
Figure 5

consideration should be paid in providing storage reservoirs of sufcient capacity in a cost effective manner to meet the yearlong demand of a household or a community. Analysis of rainfall pattern in Bangladesh shows that more than 75% of the annual rainfall would occur from May to October. Rainwater must be collected during the monsoon to be stored for use for the remaining six months. Long-term storage and preserving the quality of the harvested rainwater is very difcult in the rural context and institutional support is necessary in this regard. The risk factors such as visible sign or presence of contamination on roof (bird excreta, plants or dusts), dirty or blockage of gutter, leaking or defective tap, defective oor under the tap, presence of pollution source around the tank or water collection area, manual abstraction of water and defect in wall or top of the tank contribute the major risks of contamination of the rainwater harvesting systems. These factors deserve the highest attention in improving the sanitary protection of RWH systems. In most cases, the tank water is drink untreated. To reduce the microbial health risk, incorporation of ltration devices in the design and construction of RWH systems should be adopted. A coarse media lter should be placed between the down pipe and storage reservoir to present the entry of pollutants from the roof catchment into the storage reservoirs. Moreover, in-house ltration or disinfection of harvested rainwater should be adopted in order to reduce the microbial health burden. Community based RWH systems were found to be more contaminated microbiologically. The risk factors of contamination of such community based rainwater systems should be addressed properly, as a large portion of the community people would depend on community based RWH. In Bangladesh, there is no systematic monitoring of the quality of the harvested rainwater and issue of the safety of

Materials of the storage tanks used for RWH systems.

rainwater for about 10 minutes, that may contains bird excreta, dusts and leaves that normally accumulate on the roof catchment. Bypass the rst foul rainwater is important in maintaining the quality especially the microbial quality of stored rainwater. It was found that about 61.2% RWH systems have bypass system (mainly manual) to bypass the rst foul rainwater. Water can be abstracted different ways from the storage reservoirs and this study reveals that from 67.7% storage tanks, water is abstracted by taps especially from household RWH reservoirs and for community based systems, water is found to abstract mainly manually (22.7%) and by using No. 4 or 6 hand pumps (9.6%). The visual quality (color, odor and test) of the stored rainwater was found satisfactory in cases; however the visual quality is not satisfactory in some community based RWH systems mainly due to improper maintenance and bad workmanship of the systems. Almost all of the storage tanks have proper top cover which protect the entry of dust, insects or vectors and sunlight into the storage reservoirs. A variety of top covering materials like RCC, plastic, ferrocement and tin were found to use in RWH systems.

Issues of rainwater harvesting Monsoon high rainfall and availability of suitable roof catchment and construction materials locally make rainwater harvesting a potential alternative water supply options to the coastal and arsenic affected rural communities in Bangladesh. However, the following issues should be addressed properly in order to make rainwater harvesting as a sustainable water supply options in the country.

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rainwater supplies has until recently been largely ignored. Water safety plans should be implemented for RWH systems as well as for other alternative water supply options to ensure supply of safe water in the long-term. The use of water safety plans would also support greater community participation because of its emphasis on working with communities to monitor and manage their water safety effectively. All storage reservoirs should be disinfected and cleaned al least once in a year before the monsoon with bleaching power properly in order to maintain the water safe for drinking. A protocol of design, construction, maintenance and monitoring of the harvested rainwater should be undertaken. Recently, WHO has adopted second addendum to third edition to include rainwater harvesting (WHO 2008). This guideline can be followed for the safe and sustainable rainwater harvesting in Bangladesh.

based rainwater harvesting systems, attention must be paid in maintaining the acceptable quality of such harvested rainwater. For sustainable rainwater harvesting a protocol of system design, construction, operation and maintenance in light of the recent WHO guideline (WHO 2008) should be adopted in the country.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper is an outcome of a study project supported by the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology (MOSICT), Bangladesh. My sincere thanks to Mr. Ripon Kumar Saha, Ms. Nasreen Akther and Mr. Md. Ikramul Hoque for conducting the eld survey for this study. My sincere thanks also to DPHE (Jessore, Khulna, Chuadanga, Satkhira, and Narail) and all the staffs and ofcers of World Vision, Caritas, CDC, Shushilan and others NGOs for providing their support to carry out this study.

CONCLUSIONS
Rooftop rainwater harvesting has given priority as a potential alternative water supply option both in the arsenic affected and coastal communities in Bangladesh and several programme have already implemented to promote and install rainwater harvesting systems to supply drinking and cooking water to the coastal and arsenic affected areas. Majority of the rainwater harvesting systems were promoted and installed recently after 2,000 as part of arsenic mitigation and also to augment the drinking water problems in the coastal areas in Bangladesh. This study nding reveals that the household rainwater harvesting systems are operating very successfully and offer the facility like tap water supply. However, capacity of the most household storage tanks are not sufcient to supply yearlong water demand of a household and much consideration and attention should be paid in the yearlong availability of harvested rainwater. Water is available throughout the year in most of the community based rainwater harvesting; however water is found to be contaminated to some extend not to follow the operation and maintenance protocol. A large portion of the community people would depend on community

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