Rain Water harvesting in London,UK

We are in London for Christmas and went off scouting for Boxing Day deals at B & Q in New Malden. Going up the escalator into the store our eyes fell on the large posters showing off how the store is the 'greenest' one in the chain. For me an environment journalist the information about their harvesting rain from the roof to water the plants in their rooftop garden centre was interesting.

Walking out into the open- to- sky garden we were greeted with brightly flowering Primroses which brightened our dank and grey day. Looking around at the roof we could see the neat piping collecting the rainwater to be used to water the collection of garden plants.

There were posters in the garden utilities area encouraging the collection of rain water in a water butt. " Collect the 85,000 litres of rain water that falls on your roof," advised a poster and for me coming from a dry and thirsty India to a wet UK, the fact that RWH is being advocated here as well was a good feeling. No one even thinks about how much pristine and clear water gets wasted when rain water is allowed to flow off any where in the world.










Considering that this is the UK where there is so much rain so one assumes there is plenty of water, it is good to see RWH advocacy being pushed and people being made aware of the fact that collecting rainwater could help to water their gardens and open areas rather than let it flow away unused.

A rain ‘train’ into Bangalore’s lakes

The Metro on MG Road All it needs is a little human ingenuity to be able to help ourselves overcome our water problems in Bangalore. Bangalore sports the ugly new Metro through our city streets and whenever it rains, sheets of water cascade down the raised platform from all sides, on the hapless people and the road below. Now, the managing director of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has announced that as per the RWH plans for the Namma Metro Phase II plan, besides the percolation pits where the rain water recharges the ground water, selected lakes along the route of the Metro will be recharged directly using a network of viaducts,with rain water collected to help rejuvenate them.

At a recent FKCCI (Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce) Mr Sivasailam said the BMRCL will conduct this drive as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility acitivity. “ The two lakes which have been selected are the Kengeri Lake on Mysore Road and the Veerasandra Lake along Hosur Road. Experts are being consulted to help execute the plan. Depending on the success of this experiment we will gradually extend this to other lakes as well, which come along the Metro corridor,” he said. Talking about the quantity of water that can be collected by RWH from the Metro platform he said, “ if 42 km is the length of the corridor, multiply it by the 10 meters width to get the amount of water that can be collected. The second phase of the Namma Metro which is still to be completed is 72 km which can collect far more water than this phase,” he said.

The percolation pit Since the water collected can contain a lot of particulate matter, it will be treated before being released into the lakes.This will be a great boost to the quality of water now in the lakes which most often than not is unadulterated sewage from apartment blocks nearby, or run off from industrial units around the lake. This RWH was not attached to the Phase I of the Namma Metro as the pipeline network has to be incorporated in the design stage itself. But the water being collected in Phase I was not being wasted he clarified, but being channelised into the percolation pits and being used to water the plants decorating the medians.

 The plants on the median watered by RWH All pictures by Gregory de Nazareth

Retrofitting RWH in houses

The Nagarajan house on Sarakki Main Road, JP Nagar 1^st Phase, Bangalore looks just like any other house we commonly see in Bangalore. Built in 1981, on a 60 ft x 40 ft site, the single storey house was, at that time, at the southern most end of Bangalore city limits.

While building the house, no provision was made for rain water harvesting (RWH). “We built the house as economically as we could. I was working in HAL Hospital (located near the HAL Bangalore Airport at that time) so we did not need to worry about accommodation as we had the doctors’ quarters, but we wanted to build a house where we could live after my retirement. I took loans to buy the site and build the house.”, said Dr Nagarajan. The rain water from the roof and compound flowed off into the storm water drains which in turn flowed into the main canals and finally into the lakes of the vicinity. “Many people dig wells before construction of their houses, but we didn’t spend that extra amount on a well either.”, said Dr Nagarajan.

After construction, the house was given out on rent for several years and the family moved there only in 1995, after Dr Nagarajan retired. A few months after they occupied it, they installed solar panels. “The Electricity Department was publicizing use of solar panels and they were offering a subsidy to those who installed it in their homes. Even in the summer we need hot water to bathe, so we felt that a solar heater would save electricity.  So we got it done.”, says Dr Nagarajan. The solar panels eliminated the need to use the geyser for most of the year. “Just a little sunlight during the day is enough to provide sufficient hot water for four to five people to bathe. Only on really cloudy days do we need to use the geyser.”, said Dr Nagarajan.  

In 2003, a second storey was added to the house. Though there was the inclination to save nature’s resources and use them wisely, RWH was not in Dr Nagarajan’s thoughts. “While construction was happening, it did not occur to us to do rain water harvesting. We also did not feel the need for an extra water source as there was sufficient supply of corporation water.”, said Dr Nagarajan.

The Nagarajan house (centre)

Over the next few years, the city limits extended several kilometres south. Increased population had its impact on water consumption and water started becoming precious. As a safeguard, people started digging wells and bore wells in their compounds. Dr Nagarajan too tried to get a bore well dug. While drilling into the earth, pebbles started getting extracted after just a few metres and the loose soil gave way. The bore well idea had to be abandoned and Dr Nagarajan incurred a loss of a few thousands of rupees.

Water shortage apart, the monsoons created havoc in parts of Bangalore because the rain water had no where to go. Low lying areas were getting flooded and water entering people’s homes was not uncommon. It still happens.

In 2007, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) started encouraging people to do RWH in their houses. New constructions had to mandatorily show it in their plan before they received permission to build. For existing houses there were no mandatory requirements until the BWSSB Amendment Act of August 2009. According to the Act, RWH was made mandatory – Every owner or occupier of a building having sital area of 2400 sq ft and above or every owner who proposes to construct a building on a sital area of 1200 sq ft or more, shall provide a rain water harvesting structure for storage for use or for ground water recharge. The deadline given was 27^th May 2010. It was mentioned that if people failed to implement RWH, they were liable to have their water supply turned off. Plumbers were specially trained by the BWSSB to help people in making their houses RWH compliant.  

Dr Nagarajan wanted to meet the compliance deadline but he was not sure how complicated implementation would be, given that the house was not designed with RWH in mind. He found a plumber and together they worked out a design for RWH in the house. Dr Nagarajan decided that he would store the water for use so he invested in a 2000 litre tank. The over flow would be directed into the ground for recharge. The terrace catchment area of approximately 1000 sq ft, was generally quite clean and free of leaves so there was no need of a filtration system. Having worked out the plan, it took just a day to do the piping and complete the RWH for the house.

Now rain water from the roof is directed to the storage tank, placed in an area on the roof of the ground floor. From the storage tank, pipes lead down to the ground floor – to the backyard, frontyard and the toilets. The total cost including the cost of the storage tank, in April 2010, was Rs 22,000/-. 

Retro-fitting RWH into an already existing house seemed challenging, but turned out to be quite simple.

 Piping to carry rain water from the first floor terrace to the water storage tank.

A 2000 litre rain water storage tank. Note the wide inflow pipe (on the top) from the terrace and the narrow outflow pipe (at the bottom).

 The wash basin has one pipe from the rain water storage tank and one from the BWSSB water tank.

One pipe from the rain water storage tank is accessible in the front yard.  

“We did RWH because it was a requirement of BWSSB but we are happy we got it done because we are conserving water. Rain water is pure. We use the water for washing vessels, mopping, washing clothes, watering plants, car cleaning… all purposes in the house except cooking, drinking and bathing.”, said Dr Nagarajan. “There are no maintenance costs and RWH has reduced the monthly water bill by about Rs 100/-. The satisfaction we get when we use the harvested water cannot be expressed.”

The initial deadline for implementing RWH (27^th May 2010) kept getting extended by the BWSSB and the last deadline was 31^st March 2012. However, there are still innumerable houses that still have no RWH in place. They don’t know what they are missing! Maybe Dr Nagarajan’s experience will encourage them to do their bit to catch precious water where it drops.

Pics: Dr Nagarajan

A new Rainwater Harvesting convert!

“ The whole experience has inspired me,” says Ramsy Pinto a young engineer from IBM. “What initially started out as a knee jerk reaction to the BWSSB notification for mandatory RWH in my house, has instead taught me the true benefits of harvesting the rain. Now I will fit the same system in my house in Mangalore and enjoy the benefits there as well.”

For me a journalist who writes to educate and push the need to RWH in Bangalore, India, where fresh water is becoming a huge problem, every convert is a huge step in the right direction! Now Ramsy will help me get the word out to his connections and in the RWH arena, the spread of the concept by word-of-mouth is the best method. Ramsy and his little family live in a large house in Hennur, Bangalore with a manicured garden. “We buy water in tankers at Rs 250/- per tanker and I need 8-10 tankers a month for our home and garden needs,” explains Ramsy. What was initially planned along with his land-lord was the rainwater was going to be channelised to rejuvenate the ground water. There were certain guidelines which the BWSSB had set down including re-charging the ground water table with the rain water collected. If this was not done,the BWSSB had threatened that no ‘regular’ government supplied connection would be given to the house, once Cauvery river water began to be piped to the area.It was really just a stop gap arrangement to show the BWSSB that they had complied.

“ The first few quotes to undertake the job,we got from specialists were in the region of one half lakh and above. Then we were lucky to get this retired engineer named Jeff D’Lemos who quoted such a tiny figure, we were unsure if he could handle the job,” said Ramsy. Jeff looked at the three drains on the roof of the building and checked which drain took 50 – 70% of the water down. Then Jeff bought three lengths of PVC pipe of 6 inch diameter and a filter authorised by the government of India and fitted them. The rainwater is filtered and then goes straight into the sump and is used for all the requirements of the house.

Ramsy and his wife Shobha are so pleased that now for five months of the year they do not have to buy any tankers of water. Instead they get fresh and pure rain water. Of course they have to keep the terrace clean and release the first flow of rain water collected incase its got a lot of dust off the roof. After that the filter does its job and they get an ample supply of water to fill their sump. You can almost hear his chuckle of delight when he tells you that in the first year itself, not only has he got back his investment of Rs.15,000 he also feels he is doing something to cut back on depleting the ground water table by pumping the excess rainwater to the borewell in the premises.

As one can see in the pictures, the rains have brought welcome relief and also a strong advocate for RWH in Ramsy who will happily pass the word around about its efficacy and why all of us have to help ourselves rather than whine about water scarcity in the city of Bangalore.

At last the rain has filled the RWH tanks in Bangalore!

By Marianne de Nazareth

It’s been weeks, no months and we have been waiting anxiously for the rain in Bangalore, India. By now we are usually awash with almost daily downpours through June and July and there is plenty of rain all round, to have the gardens and roads, all washed and sparkling of the regular dust and grime, in this Asian city.

This year however, Climate Change has been lurking in the back ground, and finally exploded in our faces, granting us dry and sunny days through June and July, with just the odd sprinkling of a shower. Where were our monsoons? The farmers ae worried, the met station is in depair and Karnataka is going to consider declaring our state in a state of drought. Are we heading for a catastrophic drought scenario, everyone wondered. 

Fresh water is hard to come by for so many new million homes that have sprouted up across the outskirts of Bangalore. Its frightening because there are more buildings and homes to cater to than there is fresh water.

Frighteningly, a sort of water mafia has taken over Bangalore city now, deciding the astronomical rates to be paid for fresh water tankers. How are people to live? They have to fork out this money and these greedy shadowy figures have held the city to ransom. The government turns a blind eye as they cannot supply more water to cater to these homes. What used to cost Rs 150 a few years ago for a tanker of water, now costs anywhere from Rs350 to Rs 500 in the city of Bangalore.

But there is a silver lining in the midst of this looming crisis situation. Yes! the government of Karnataka has made it mandatory for new buildings to build and maintain, Rain Water Harvesting systems. They will not be issued certificates of possession, unless this is adhered to which is an excellent move. For me as a journalist who has been writing on RWH for years, it was a positive move and in the right direction. Only by making measures like these mandatory will people spend on installing RWH mechanisms which cost money and which they do not want to spend.

 Two years ago there was money left over after a seminar in college and I told the director that the money should be used to install a RWH system in the college. The principal then was a far thinking man. He added to the 20 thousand we had saved, along with the college contribution which was over one lakh and installed a large tank and RWH piping for the building.  

Last night it rained and it rained like the monsoons had finally come. There were roars of welcome thunder and brilliant flashes of lightening, which is music to my ears. I stood at the windows of our home and thought of all the RWH tanks merrily filling up across the city. My face lit up because instead of the precious water just running down roads and flooding low lying areas, at least some of the precious water was being harvested across the city. 

In my mind the huge tank in college floated up and there was a joyous feeling that it was going to be filled that night, hearing the welcome force with which the rain was drumming on my roof. The water is used to clean the toilets, water the gardens and wash the common areas in the college. It was a great feeling and I wonder how many Bangaloreans across the city felt the same way as I did.

Marianne de Nazareth

(registered PhD scholar, Madurai Kamraj University, adjunct faculty, St Joseph’s College and COMMITS and freelance web and print journalist.)    

Photographs by Marianne de Nazareth

Zambia's rainwater harvesting potential high

By Newton Sibanda
LUSAKA, Zambia- RAINWATER  Harvesting (RWH) has been a practiced since time in memorial. It has, however,  been practiced at different levels- domestic and agricultural use, which are referred to as  the blue and green water use respectively.

However, Zambia Rainwater Harvesting Association (ZRHA) Secretary General Bob Muzyamba says the scale of utilization of RWH in Zambia’ leaves a lot to be desired’.

“Since 1998, Zambia has been involved in many meetings, workshops, collaborations and protocols relating to RWH in the SADC (Souhern African Development Community) region to respond to the effects of the drought hitting the region.

The Ministry of Agriculture together with the Ministry of Local Government and Housing as well as the Ministry of Energy and Water Development  were engaged by the Zambia Rainwater Harvesting Association to explore ways of enhancing the utilization of RWH as an appropriate technology for the effective use of water as a resource,” said Mr Muzyamba. 

Zambia has been experience erratic rain fall partners for the past 10 years which have affected the  predictability of the rain pattern and planning.

Mr Muzyamba says the association has tried to align itself with Government policy to ensure that the knowledge and skills reposed in it can be recognized and utilized.

“There is a huge potential of Rainwater Harvesting in Zambia in all regions or zones. The potential is in flood control and drought control on one part, and water conservation on the other part,” he said.
Mr Muzyamba is also acting president of the association after the demise of the incumbent,  Joyce Musiwa as per its constitution.

Rain Harvest will solve water scarcity in Uganda- Businge

Many call her a traditional woman because she still believes that every family should harvest water when it is rain season for future use. 

A practice, she learnt from her grandmother, Grace Businge says that it is shame people in Uganda to decry the scarcity of water, while God bless  us with the most rain patterns in the world.

 

Grace has placed a tank in each and every house to tap water

She has place tanks in every house that has a facility to tap water including the roofs of her pig, poultry houses and latrine to stock water for future purposes.

“Right from my childhood I knew that harvesting rain water can save time, women and children who trek long distance in search of water during the dry seasons,” she says.

Businge, 49, a resident of Nsoro I, Kitereza ward, Kijura town council in Kabarole district says that the prolonged drought has not affected her because she stocks water and use it to irrigate her crops while others are crying.

Businge has no kind words for women who have abandoned the practice of harvesting water in the name of modernity. 

She says that if women were harvesting water, Uganda would not have had the food crisis and increase in prices would not surface.

“I was hearing people crying that food is becoming expensive but my family was not affected because I has enough millet, beans, maize, dry yams, cassava, obutuzi (mushrooms), and others things in stock. All my crops are green as you can them because I had to irrigate them,” she says.

Businge also save the money she would have spent on water bills and she constructed an underground tank of 50,000 litres to tap rain water.

 “Harvesting water is very important for every family; it’s a cheap way of getting clean water. It also save them from searching for water during dry season like now we are experiencing,” she adds.

Islamabad's taps dry up as water shortages worsen

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:45 GMT

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/islamabads-taps-dry-up-as-water-shortages-worsen/

By Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio

ISLAMABAD (AlertNet) – Fatima Batool lives in a two-story house in a posh residential area of Islamabad that features shiny air-conditioned shopping plazas and restaurant-lined streets.

But for the past two months, she has been lacking one key thing: water. As the reservoirs that supply Pakistan’s capital with water run dry, so has Batool’s tap.

An Islamabad Capital Development Authority’s employee starts a diesel-powered generator to fill an underground water tank at a bungalow in an upscale residential district of Islamabad. ALERTNET/Saleem Shaikh

 “It really feels traumatic, like living in a village, when one has taps like this without water for weeks,” said the 34-year-old mother of three, as she tested a tap in her courtyard without success.

Her children, anxiously scratching their bodies, have gone without a bath for the past two weeks, she said.

“This is first time that our neighbourhood has gone without water for weeks since we moved here from Lahore,” said Batool, who has lived in Islamabad for 10 years.

An escalating water shortage in and around Pakistan’s bustling capital has been caused by population growth and a combination of failing rains and high temperatures which experts link to climate change.

SURGE IN DRILLING

The shortages, and growing demand for water, is leading residents who can afford it to drill boreholes, while others are forced to buy what they need from private water tankers charging exorbitant sums.

Afsar Ali spent 150,000 Pakistani rupees (nearly $1,600) drilling a borehole outside his house in June to supply it with groundwater after the piped water supply almost completely ran out the previous month.

“Previously, I never felt the need (to do this) during two decades of my living here, as there was no tap water shortage in the entire city,” the 61-year-old said.

Batool’s husband Bilawal Khan said he complained about the shortage to the Capital Development Authority, but the tanker it sent in response came at night and could not reach his house because of cars parked in the street.

Islamabad, situated in the scenic Margalla Hills in the country’s north-west, once received abundant rain throughout the year. For the past 10 to 12 years, however, rainfall has declined, although until now the resultant water shortages affected mostly poor and middle-income neighbourhoods.

But with too little rain to adequately recharge the underground aquifers and the large reservoirs that provide water for the city and nearby areas, the water shortage is for the first time affecting even upscale areas.

Temperatures, which until about a decade ago rarely soared beyond 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), now reach as high as 48C (118F), causing demand for water to skyrocket.

“Rising temperature during summer days is a major cause of why water shortages have become routine for the last few years,” said Ghulam Rasul, chief weather scientist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department. 

He added that local factors such as the doubling of Islamabad’s population since 1998 to 1.7 million, the increased numbers of vehicles, and excessive tree-felling have also contributed to the change in the local climate.

SUPPLY DRAMATICALLY DOWN

Islamabad and its adjoining areas including Rawalpindi need 198 million gallons of water daily, but only about 27 million gallons are currently being supplied, according to the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

The Simly, Rawal and Khanpur dams, located between 25 and 40 km (16 and 25 miles) from Islamabad, are holding too little water to maintain an adequate supply to the metropolitan area.

Asim Saeed, executive engineer of the Khanpur dam, said that water flow to Islamabad and the vicinity is down to less than a third of the previously normal volume.

“If the present situation persists for a few more days the dam will go completely dry,” Saeed said, blaming unusually poor rainfall in the catchment area over the past several months for the falling water levels.

Ramzan Sajid, a CDA spokesperson, said that the agency was receiving over 1,000 complaints of water shortages from residential sectors every day. 

“With all rain-fed reservoirs that provide the city with water at their (lowest) levels, nothing can be done to offset the severe water shortage,” Sajid said. “We can only wait for the rain that can help improve the situation.”

Underground water is becoming harder to access as well.

“Only 10 years ago water could be found 50 to 100 feet deep in most of the capital city, said Abdul Hafeez, the Pakistan representative of WaterAid, an international nongovernmental organisation.  “But today, people have to bore 250 to 300 feet down to extract water,” he said.

Allowing people to dig for water on their own is a serious mistake on the part of Islamabad’s civic authorities, according to Hafeez, because it speeds up the depletion of the aquifers.

Hafeez believes that the solution to the burgeoning water shortage lies primarily in rainwater harvesting and in campaigns to raise awareness about water conservation.

Many residents traditionally wash their sidewalks and cars each day, sending water flooding down the city’s streets. Changing people’s attitudes and traditions will not be easy, Hafeez said.

“The government should make legislation against such wasteful behaviours and make a national rainwater harvesting policy,” he said. Such a policy should require rainwater harvesting systems for every household in Islamabad and in parts of the country with adequate rainfall, he explained.

Hafeez also recommended that each household with boreholes be taxed and the revenue used to fund awareness-raising campaigns and water conservation projects.

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio are climate change and development reporters based in Karachi, Pakistan.

Islamabad's Battle for Water

By Saleem Shaikh

July 24, 2012

Reuters News Agency

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Hotter temperatures, shifting rainfall and growing population are reducing the amount of available water in Islamabad. As dams dry up, people are drilling more borehole wells and trying to find other answers.

WaterAid – UK’s country manager in Pakistan, Abdul Hafeez, says normal practices such as washing homes and cars each day, sending waste water flooding down streets, must change. Moulding people’s attitudes towards adopting rainwater harvesting systems and water conservation habits at their homes will be important.

He said Pakistan’s government should pass legislation outlawing wasteful use of water and institute a national rainwater harvesting policy.

WaterAid -UK’s Hafeez believes that having rainwater harvesting in each household in Islamabad and other parts of the country should be made obligatory.

Watch more in this short documentary...

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/video-and-audio/detail.dot?mediaInode=f661a20e-9db7-4ad4-b915-758f317c51f7

Or 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFkXW8J5E1A

Judicious rain water harvesting and smart agriculture, the need of the hour in India

It is a frightening scenario in India. I have just returned from ESOF2012 in Dublin, UK, where the famous rain, kept us indoors for most of the day. There seemed to be no dearth of water and one was soaked if you went out unprepared. Then I come home to India where the monsoons seem to have played truant and so our water supplies in the reservoirs across the country have depleted to alarming levels. According to figures which have been released by the CWC (Central Water Commission) the situation is precarious because the monsoon has delivered normal rainfall to only one-third of the country. The total deficit so far this season is 22%, but rainfall has been 40% below average in key crop-growing areas in the north and northwest. India's 84 important reservoirs are filled only to 19% capacity, which is 41% lower than last year.

Sitting in at a session at ESOF 2012, where the discussion was on whether we can feed 9 billion people by 2050 or will we starve, the focus by several speakers was on the availability of water in the developing world and that it is in the developing world, where the bulk of the 9 billion will be. Bill Davies a water expert from Lancaster University and Jonathan Jones from the John Innes Institute, UK, spoke about the key challenge of how to enhance food production in the face of limiting water supply.

Bill Davies spoke about his experience in China where there is excessive use of water for growing of rice the staple crop. “ One kg of rice needs 2500 litres of water to be grown and China has even depleted its ground  water table so where does it go now? One third of fresh water is used in irrigation,” he said, “ so if there is less water we must learn to use less,” he said. He talked about manipulating root growth characteristics of the rice plants and he has experimented successfully with watering one furrow and leaving one furrow dry, thereby saving water and still keeping the crop yield stable.

Jonathan Jones echoed the use of less water and also using geneticlly modified (GM) crops which he believes is the answer to the food crisis which will hit our planet with the current system unsustainable system of agriculture. Both scientists felt the transference of science to the field level is necessary for smart agriculture. With a combination of science and agriculture they say man has hope, to feed the projected 9 billion population, which will cover our planet by 2050. 

  

In India, the reservoirs are filled by harvesting of the monsoon rains from June to September. The storage in the Bhakra dam, which irrigates the bread basket states of Punjab and Haryana, is barely 22% of capacity, down from 48% at the same time last year, forcing the Bhakra Beas Management Board to cut water supply by 10%. This will hit paddy and coarse cereals sown in these two states. Depleted reservoirs and weak rainfall can hurt winter planting, because fields would have inadequate moisture and crops sown after the monsoon, depend almost entirely on water flowing out of reservoirs.

The planet is at a crucial time of its existence, when rain water harvesting has not only to be maximised, but it also has to be carefully and judiciously used and it is scientists like Jones and Davies who travel to educate the farmer at the grass root level, to understand the need for smart farming practice.

Marianne de Nazareth

(The writer covered ESOF 2012 as a Robert Bosch Fellow)

Welcome to the Journalists for Rainwater Harvesting blog!

At the International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA), we have decided to create a group of journalists who will research and write about rainwater harvesting, in order to help us raise awareness about this vital resource. By reporting about rainwater harvesting in their local, regional or national area, journalists are perfectly placed for this important task.

As well as publishing their articles, photographs and films in local media, our Journalists for Rainwater Harvesting will also share their first hand observations of rainwater harvesting here, on this blog.

We hope to give you a taste of how and why rainwater is harvested all around the world!