Rain water harvesting

A rainwater harvesting system comprises components of various stages – transporting rainwater through pipes or drains, filtration, and storage in tanks for reuse or recharge. The common components of a rainwater harvesting system involved in these stages are illustrated here.

1. Catchments: The catchment of a water harvesting system is the surface which directly receives the rainfall and provides water to the system. It can be a paved area like a terrace or courtyard of a building, or an unpaved area like a lawn or open ground. A roof made of reinforced cement concrete (RCC), galvanised iron or corrugated sheets can also be used for water harvesting.
2. Coarse mesh at the roof to prevent the passage of debris
3. Gutters:

Channels all around the edge of a sloping roof to collect and transport rainwater to the storage tank. Gutters can be semi-circular or rectangular and could be made using:

• Locally available material such as plain galvanised iron sheet (20 to 22 gauge), folded to required shapes.
• Semi-circular gutters of PVC material can be readily prepared by cutting those pipes into two equal semi-circular channels.
• Bamboo or betel trunks cut vertically in half.

The size of the gutter should be according to the flow during the highest intensity rain. It is advisable to make them 10 to 15 per cent oversize.

Gutters need to be supported so they do not sag or fall off when loaded with water. The way in which gutters are fixed depends on the construction of the house; it is possible to fix iron or timber brackets into the walls, but for houses having wider eaves, some method of attachment to the rafters is necessary.

4. Conduits

Conduits are pipelines or drains that carry rainwater from the catchment or rooftop area to the harvesting system. Conduits can be of any material like polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or galvanized iron (GI), materials that are commonly available.

The following table gives an idea about the diameter of pipe required for draining out rainwater based on rainfall intensity and roof area:

Sizing of rainwater pipe for roof drainage

mm/ h – millimeters per hour; m – meters

Source: National Building Code

5. First-flushing

A first flush device is a valve that ensures that runoff from the first spell of rain is flushed out and does not enter the system. This needs to be done since the first spell of rain carries a relatively larger amount of pollutants from the air and catchment surface.

6. Filter

The filter is used to remove suspended pollutants from rainwater collected over roof. A filter unit is a chamber filled with filtering media such as fibre, coarse sand and gravel layers to remove debris and dirt from water before it enters the storage tank or recharge structure. Charcoal can be added for additional filtration.

(i) Charcoal water filter

A simple charcoal filter can be made in a drum or an earthen pot. The filter is made of gravel, sand and charcoal, all of which are easily available.

(ii) Sand filters

Sand filters have commonly available sand as filter media. Sand filters are easy and inexpensive to construct. These filters can be employed for treatment of water to effectively remove turbidity (suspended particles like silt and clay), colour and microorganisms.

In a simple sand filter that can be constructed domestically, the top layer comprises coarse sand followed by a 5-10 mm layer of gravel followed by another 5-25 cm layer of gravel and boulders.

(ii.a) Dewas filters

Most residents in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, have wells in their houses. Formerly, all that those wells would do was extract groundwater. But then, the district administration of Dewas initiated a groundwater recharge scheme. The rooftop water was collected and allowed to pass through a filter system called the Dewas fillter, designed by Mohan Rao , district collecter of Dewas, and engineers of the rural engineering services. The water thus filtered is put into the service tubewell.

The filter consists of a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe 140 mm in diameter and 1.2m long. There are three chambers. The first purification chamber has pebbles varying between 2-6 mm, the second chamber has slightly larger pebbles, between 6 and 12 mm and the third chamber has the largest – 12-20 mm pebbles. There is a mesh at the outflow side through which clean water flows out after passing through the three chambers. The cost of this filter unit is Rs 600.

Filter for large rooftops

When rainwater is harvested in a large rooftop area, the filtering system should accommodate the excess flow. A system is designed with three concentric circular chambers in which the outer chamber is filled with sand, the middle one with coarse aggregate and the inner-most layer with pebbles.
Varun:
S Vishwanath, a Bangalore water harvesting expert, has developed a rainwater filter “VARUN”. According to him, from a decently clean roof ‘VARUN’ can handle a 50 mm per hour intensity rainfall from a 50 square metre roof area. This means the product is relatively standardised. For new house builders we therefore can recommend the number of downpipes they have to optimise on and the number of filters they will need.

‘VARUN’ is made from a 90 litre High Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) drum. The lid is turned over and holes are puched in it. This is the first sieve which keeps out large leaves, twigs etc. Rainwater coming out of the lid sieve then passes through three layers of sponge and a 150 mm thick layer of coarse sand. Presence of sponge makes the cleaning process very easy. Remove the first layer of sponge and soak /clean it in a bucket of water (which you then don’t waste but use it for plants). The sand needs no cleaning at all. The basic cost of the filter is about Rs 2250/-

b. Horizontal roughing filter and slow sand filter
The introducton of horizontal roughing filter and slow sand filter (HRF/SSF) to treat surface water has made safe drinking water available in coastal pockets of Orissa. The major components of this filter are described below.
1) Filter channel :One square metre in cross-section and eight m in length, laid across the tank embankment, the filter channel consists of three uniform compartments, the first packed with broken bricks, the second with coarse sand, followed by fine sand in the third compartment. The HRF usually consists of filter material like gravel and coarse sand that successively decreases in size from 25 mm to 4 mm. The bulk of solids in the incoming water is separated by this coarse filter media or HRF. At every outlet and inlet point of the channel, fine graded mesh is implanted to prevent entry of finer materials into the sump. The length of a channel varies according to the nature of the site selected for the sump.

2) Sump:A storage provision to collect filtered water from the tank through the filter channel for storage and collection.

While HRF acts as a physical filter and is applied to retain solid matter, SSF is primarily a biological filter, used to kill microbes in the water. Both filter types are generally stable, making full use of the natural purification process of harvested surface water and do not require any chemicals.

iii. Rain PC

AcquaSure, a consortium of three specialist Netherlands-based companies, has developed a system for the conversion of rainwater to drinking water in the form of a Rainwater Purification Centre (RainPC).

RainPC is developed by scaling down the multi-staged water treatment method (MST), which involves screening, flocculation sedimentation and filtration and incorporating existing technologies like upward flow fine filtration, absorption and ion exchange. Coming in a small compact 26 kg unit, the RainPC offers an affordable solution by converting rainwater into drinking water.

RainPC is made of ultra violet resistant poly-ethylene housing and cover, stainless steel rods and bolts, a nickel-brass valve and an adapter for maintaining constant volume. Xenotex-A and activated carbon catridges along with ultra membrane filtration or micro-membrane filtration modules incorporated in the RainPC has the capacity to deal with E-coli and the potential of meeting the Dutch as well as World Health Organisations (WHO) water regulation standards. The components can also be transported individually to be assembled at the site. Three product types are available based on their microbial contaminant removal capacity. This technology is ideally suited for virtually any situation and is a blessing particularly for those who have little or no access to regular safe drinking water.