TITLE:
Strategies for Household Water Supply Improvement with Rainwater Harvesting
AUTHORS:
Tulinave Burton Mwamila, Zacharia Katambara, Moo Young Han
KEYWORDS:
Dual Water Supply, Household Water Supply, Rainwater Harvesting Strategies, Rainwater Harvesting Technology, Tanzania
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.4 No.9,
September
29,
2016
ABSTRACT: There are significant household water supply challenges including
quantity sufficiency and quality, which have economic and social implications.
The challenges have remained despite the efforts of government establishing
centralized or groundwater systems, and/or having individual crude systems. A
Tanzanian rural household case study was considered by assessing the
performance of a currently relied surface runoff collecting pond system for domestic
purposes. A daily water balance model was applied with performance parameters,
no water days (NWD) and rainwater usage (RUR). Rooftop runoff harvesting system
was proposed as a water supply source in addition to the current one. Under
such dual supply conditions, users can meet the drinking and non-drinking
demand even in dry seasons at a minimum of 2 and 20 L/person/d, respectively.
For rainwater harvesting adoption (considering selected regions), it was
further established that amount and variation in rainfall impacts on quantity
available for meeting demand. Increased catchment implies increased harvestable
quantity, and with same storage higher reduction of number of NWD although with
slight decrease of RUR. Also, increased storage is required for achieving
higher RUR in case the same demand is maintained. But same storage can be
maintained for increased demand relative to catchment size. However, rainwater
catchment increase has greater impact on meeting a specified demand under given
condition of rainfall quantity and variation. The RWH technology strategies
presented in this study are replicable in other developing countries under site
specific conditions.