WATER MANAGEMENT THROUGH RAINWATER HARVESTING USING GEOINFORMATICS

ABHINAV JAIN
M. Sc. Geoinformatics (Ist Year) Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics Indias population is 16% of the world population, whereas, water resources are only 4% that of the world. Present water demand is 1122 billion m3 (Surfce water 690 billion m3 and groundwater 432 billion m3). By 2010, groundwater demand would increase to 710 billion m3. By 2050, it would be 1180 billion m3 i.e. less than availability. This needs urgent attention on water management. Rainwater harvesting is one of the solutions. CONCEPT OF RAINWATER HARVESTING Rain Water Harvesting is a way to capture the rain water when it rains, store that water above ground or charge the underground and use it later. This happens naturally in open rural areas. But in congested, over-paved metropolitan cities, we need to create methods to capture the rain water. In major part of our country, most of the rainfall water goes as runoff and meets sea. Only 10 to 20% of total rainfall water is added to groundwater. Therefore, it is very much essential that rainwater is utilized to maximum extent and waste water is recharged. NEED OF RAINWATER HARVESTING 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. As water is becoming scarce, it is the need of the day to attain self-sufficiency to fulfill the water needs. As urban water supply system is under tremendous pressure for supplying water to ever increasing population. Groundwater is getting depleted and polluted. Soil erosion resulting from the unchecked runoff. Health hazards due to consumption of polluted water.

ROLE OF GEOINFORMATICS Rainwater many a times causes drought and floods in India. There is need for proper management of rain water and Remote sensing and GIS can play important role in this respect. Remotely sensed data can be used in GIS environment to identify flooded areas in analysing and diverting the flood water to deficient rainfall areas. The false colour composite satellite imagery may be used to find the areas affected by floods. The locations of linking channels, reservoirs and lakes in deficient rainfall areas are obtained from application of GIS i.e. GPS. The areas with thick aquifers are located from the hydrogeologic data of the region. GIS can be used to analyse the diversion of rainfall runoff water to such regions by using pipe lines/open channels. This would enable recharging of the aquifers faster. If such regions with thick aquifers lie along the coast, this would help in reducing salinity ingression from sea. The only way of recharging the aquifers in drought prone areas is rain water harvesting. In such regions, remote sensing can

be well employed in identifying best locations for the construction of rainwater harvesting structures, such as check dams, bunds etc. Three dimensional images can help in estimating total runoff of water. GIS softwares such as ArcGIS, ERDAS etc. can be employed to identify those regions with heavy runoff and the possibility of constructing rainwater harvesting structures in those places. Thus remote sensing and GIS plays good role in managing the extreme problems of floods and drought caused by the rainfall pattern of a particular region. RAINWATER HARVESTING METHODS a.) Percolation / Absorption Pit A percolation / absorption pit is a hand bore made in the soil with the help of an augur and filled up with pebbles and river sand on top. The depth of these pits will be anywhere between 4 and 8 meters depending on the nature of the soil. If the soil is clayey, the pit has to be dug to a depth till a reasonably saturated stratum is reached. The diameter of these pits will be dependent on catchment characteristics, rainfall pattern and aquifer deposition & water level behaviour. b.) Open Well Method Around the open wells, rectangular platform can be made with radiating slope towards the outer periphery. This periphery should have one m. deep & half m. wide trench filled with broken bricks & coarse sand all around. This would avoid wastage of water and the water, which is spread over & flows laterally, would go back in to the system through natural filtration. Besides, this would prevent formation of stagnant water around the well causing unhygienic conditions. c.) Defunct hand pumps The defunct hand pumps found any where in the city may be linked with natural drainage through filtration tank to send the runoff water in to the ground water regime. d.) Ponds & seasonal rivers The dams and ponds in and around the area may be used to store rainwater by diverting drainage. Additional storage & recharge can be created by constructing check dams, bunds, subsurface dykes etc. e.) Pebble bed technique Most of the multistory complexes have very little open area. In such houses, one pebble bed may be developed in three sides of the complex by digging 1.5 m. m. deep trench having sandy layer up to ground water level & hence this method could work wonderfully well. By this method, we can add 70% of the rainfall water in to the ground. f.) Recharge well method This method is suitable for those house complexes, where open area is very less. In such eventualities, we could adopt same method as that has been for ordinary ground floor flats. g.) Broken Brick technique This method works very well in the multistory complexes, where open area is adequate. In such complex, a trench having 2 m. depth and 1 m. width is made all around the house periphery & is filled with pieces of broken bricks. This is connected with the roof through 4 PVC pipes. This helps in percolating the water in to the ground water system by more than 50% of the total rainfall water.

h.) Use of abandoned tubewell In many houses, we have tubewells which have gone out of order either due to depletion of ground water level or due to very poor availability of water. For such wells, we can make 1.0 m. dia. Circular pit of 0.6 m. depth around the tubewell & fill the some with broken bricks upto height of 0.3 m. after covering the top of well by 1.5 mm filter.Farm house etc. where open area is larger than to built up area. In these situations, we can create slope of ground in one side of the area & collect the rainwater falling on ground as well as roof. At the end of the slope, one filtration tank can be made & rainfall water can be sent to underground by small injection well piercing the impervious layer. i.) Rainwater Harvesting in Group Houses Utilise the open well if any, within the complex to divert the rainwater from the terrace into it. If not, construct a well for this purpose. The rainwater falling on the open space around the complex can be collected near the gate by providing a gutter with perforated lid. The collected water can be led through necessary piping arrangements into a injection well upto water level through sedimentation tank. BENEFITS OF RAINWATER HARVESTING The groundwater level will be raised due to recharging of underground water regime. Dilution the salt content in wells and improvement in the water quality. Improvement in the moisture content in the soil. Better growth of plants & trees near the road sides and rainwater harvesting structures. Utilization of treated waste water disposal from industry Waste water recharge will help in enhance ground water availability to the industries Less space is required for waste water disposal

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